Vaping and nicotine addiction are quietly affecting teens and young adults at alarming rates—often without you as the parent fully realizing what’s happening.

And while your teen may respond to your concerns by dismissing them or minimizing the issue, the truth is they often carry a heavy mix of shame, anxiety, isolation, and fear around vaping.

Many well-intended parenting strategies—consequences, pressure, fear tactics, or attempts to control the behavior—tend to backfire once addiction is involved.

Add that to the already overwhelming stress of teen life, and the need for relief becomes constant. Vaping provides that relief. A way to get through the day.

Before they realize what’s happening, they’re in over their heads—and often feel they have no one to turn to.

In fact, many of the teens and young adults I work with hesitate to bring up vaping at all. They worry I’ll judge them, pressure them to stop, or be disappointed in them. Some are already so disappointed in themselves that they avoid the topic entirely.

They know nicotine addiction is real. But they also believe that vaping occasionally doesn’t make them addicted. And even when their use increases, they find they can stop anytime.

Until they can’t.

And that moment is both embarrassing and scary.

Nicotine use is like running down a hill. At first, stopping is easy. Then momentum takes over, and suddenly stopping is not so simple.

That’s the part no one understands until they’ve lived it. The shift from recreational use to addiction is subtle and silent.

Once that shift happens, the person struggling with addiction is in the driver’s seat.

And honestly long before addiction forms—often as soon as curiosity begins—you likely have far less influence over the narrative than you think.