Episode 179: Adoption, Attachment, and Addiction: Why Adoptees Struggle and What Recovery Really Asks For
- 5 hours ago
- 11 min read
For some people, addiction starts as relief. It is the first quiet a hypervigilant nervous system has ever known. That hypervigilance often begins with an early attachment rupture. Sometimes it begins before the first words.
This is the link between adoption, attachment, and addiction. Many adoptees carry a higher risk for addiction. The reason is biological. It lives in the nervous system. An early loss of attachment wires the body to brace and scan. A substance can quiet that noise for the first time.
Licensed therapist Lisa Coppola lives this work. She works at the intersection of adoption, attachment, and addiction. She also speaks as an adoptee in long-term recovery. She walks through the four hidden losses of the adoptee. And she shares why connection is the real work of recovery, far more than abstinence alone.
"A big part of recovery from addiction is peer connection."
 — Lisa Coppola
"We heal in relationships. We heal in connection. Healing in isolation is not a thing. True healing, repair, and recovery is about creating safe, authentic connection."
— Dr. Aimie Apigian
This is where adoption, attachment, and addiction meet. An early attachment rupture leaves the nervous system braced and hypervigilant. A substance can feel like the first relief from that noise. Drawing on her own recovery, Lisa Coppola names the four hidden losses adoptees carry. She shares why recovery asks for more than abstinence. It asks for a safe connection.
Key Takeaways
The link between adoption, attachment, and addiction begins in the nervous system
An early attachment rupture wires the nervous system for hypervigilance
For many adoptees, a substance brings the first relief from constant inner adrenaline
Addiction often works as a survival strategy for unbearable inner pain
Adoptees often carry four hidden losses: history, trust, health, and self
The loss of trust forms in the body, remembered but not recalled
Relinquishment at birth still registers as trauma, even in a loving home
Early separation can raise the risk of autoimmune and inflammatory conditions
Attachment begins in utero, which sits at the heart of the primal wound
Reunion with biological family can reopen the original wound
For adoptees, recovery depends on safe connection more than abstinence alone
In This Episode You'll Learn:
01:27 — What is the connection between attachment rupture and addiction?
07:28 — What do adoptees describe when a substance finally quiets the noise?
09:51 — The first loss: what is the loss of history?
11:34 — The second loss: why does the loss of trust live in the body?
14:07 — The third loss: how does early separation affect physical health?
16:24 — Is adoption at birth really a "safe window" for the baby?
20:20 — The fourth loss: what is the loss of self through disenfranchised grief?
22:37— Why does healing in recovery come from connection?
29:55 — What can happen when an adoptee reunites with biological family?
33:42 — What safeguards an adoptee from relapse in the hardest moments?
37:00 — What final message matters most for adoptees and attachment trauma?
Notable Quotes:
"I've never met an adoptee that's not hypervigilant."
"You become wired for survival versus wired for connection."
"The healing comes from the group and the connection."
Episode Takeaway
What Lisa shared adds another piece to what the body keeps telling us.
The link between adoption, attachment, and addiction lives in the nervous system. An early attachment rupture leaves a mark. The body learns to expect loss. It stays braced, scanning, ready for the next goodbye. This is the hypervigilance Lisa describes. It is also why a substance can feel like the first quiet a person has known.
This is the pattern of Disconnection, and it begins before words. Attachment forms in utero. This sits at the heart of what some call the primal wound. So a baby separated at birth still carries the rupture. A newborn lying calm in a stranger's arms is not always content. Sometimes that stillness is a freeze response.
The losses gather from there. History. Trust. Health. Self. Each one shapes the body's sense of who is safe. For an adoptee, recovery asks for more than stopping a substance. It asks for safe, regulated connection.
This is the part I want you to hold. Isolation keeps the survival pattern in place. We heal in relationships where the nervous system finally feels met. That is where repair happens, slowly, in the body.
Underneath this episode is a question worth sitting with. Is it stress, or a trauma response? The free Stress or Trauma guide helps you read your own state. You can pair it with chapter 11 of The Biology of Trauma, the attachment chapter.
Resources/Guides:
Stress or Trauma? Read What Your Body Is Running (free): a Biology of Trauma® guide to recognize whether your nervous system is running a stress response or a trauma response, and the sequence it needs next.
The Biology of Trauma: chapter 11 is the attachment chapter, on how early life shapes the nervous system.
Related Podcast Episodes:
About the Guest:Â
Lisa Coppola, known as LC, is a licensed therapist, writer, and educator. She is based in Portland, Maine. There she runs a counseling practice at the intersection of adoption, attachment, and addiction. Lisa is the creator of the Voices Unheard storytelling program. She has written a workbook for Boston Post Adoption Resources to support adult adoptees. Much of her work centers on adoptees in addiction recovery and those navigating reunion with biological family. She speaks from lived experience as an adoptee in long-term recovery. She is currently writing a book on her own story.
Your host: Dr. Aimie Apigian is a double board-certified physician in Preventive and Addiction Medicine, author of the national bestselling book The Biology of Trauma (foreword by Gabor Maté) and the founder of the Biology of Trauma® framework that transforms our understanding of how the body experiences and holds trauma. She holds master's degrees in biochemistry and public health. After foster-adopting a child during medical school sparked her journey, she desperately sought for answers that would only continue as she developed chronic health issues. Through her Biology of Trauma® practitioner training, podcast, YouTube channel, and international speaking, Dr. Aimie bridges functional medicine, attachment science, and trauma therapy — with a focus on facilitating accelerated repair of trauma's impact on the mind, body, and biology.
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What is the connection between adoption, attachment, and addiction?
Adoption, attachment, and addiction are linked through the nervous system. An early attachment rupture leaves the body braced, and a substance can quiet that alarm.
Most pages on adoption and addiction stop at risk. The deeper story is biological. Attachment is the body's first survival system. When that early bond breaks, the nervous system learns the world is unsafe. It braces. It scans. It waits for the next loss.
A substance enters that picture as relief. For the first time, the alarm goes quiet. This is why addiction can take hold quickly for someone with an early attachment wound. The pull is the nervous system reaching for the regulation it never received.
Why do adoptees struggle with addiction more than other people?
Many adoptees carry relinquishment trauma from early separation. The nervous system stays dysregulated, so a substance can soothe a fear that began before memory.
Researchers have long noted a higher risk of addiction among adoptees. The why matters more than the number. Separation from the birth mother is an early, preverbal loss. The body records it as relinquishment trauma. It is the wound that is remembered but not recalled.
That early dysregulation does not resolve on its own. It runs under daily life as hypervigilance and inner adrenaline. A substance can switch it off for a moment. The relief is real, which is part of what makes it so compelling.
Why does a substance feel like relief instead of a high?
For a hypervigilant nervous system, a substance is the first quiet it has known. The inner critic softens, and the constant adrenaline finally drops.
Lisa describes her mind as a thunderstorm. Alcohol felt like an overpass that stopped the storm. The adrenaline pulsing through her body finally paused. She did not realize other people were not living that way.
This is the survival logic of addiction. The body found something that brings relief from unbearable inner noise. Naming it as survival, rather than weakness, is where compassion and real change begin.
What are the four hidden losses of the adoptee?
Lisa names four hidden losses: history, trust, health, and self. Each shapes how safe the world feels and how possible connection becomes in adult life.
Lisa names four hidden losses adoptees carry:
Loss of history — no mirrors, no shared medical or cultural story, a quiet genealogical bewilderment.
Loss of trust — formed below memory, shaping every later relationship.
Loss of health — a stress response system shaped too early.
Loss of self — carried through disenfranchised grief and the pressure to feel only grateful.
Society often tells adoptees they are lucky. That message asks them to suppress the harder truth. Over time, they begin to doubt their own experience.
Why does the loss of trust live in the body and not in memory?
The loss of trust forms before words. It is a body memory of early separation, remembered but not recalled. Logic cannot reach it, so it stays felt, not thought.
An adoptee can know, logically, that a person is safe. The body still says otherwise. The gut keeps expecting to be let down. This is not a thought to argue with. It is a survival expectation written into the nervous system.
Lisa describes it simply. A child becomes wired for survival instead of wired for connection. That wiring shows up later as the pull toward people, paired with the fear of being left.
How does early separation affect an adoptee's physical health?
Early separation floods a developing body with stress. That can prime inflammation and a dysregulated stress response. Many adoptees report autoimmune conditions and chronic health struggles later.
The first days and months of life shape the body at a rapid pace. Time in the NICU, premature birth, or separation from the mother all register as stress. A stressful pregnancy, often shaped by coercion or poverty, adds to the load before birth.
Lisa observes that many adoptees she knows live with autoimmune conditions. [Clinical observation, not a cited statistic — VERIFY before stating as research.] This is the Disease pattern showing up in a body that has carried too much, too early.
Is adoption trauma real if a baby is adopted at birth?
Yes. Attachment begins in utero, so a newborn already knows the birth mother. Separation at birth still registers as rupture. This sits at the heart of the primal wound.
For decades, a misread of attachment theory taught that early adoption was the safe window. A newborn seems content in any arms. We now understand that calm differently. Often it is a freeze response, not a sign of safety.
The baby has already bonded in utero. It knows the only physiology it has ever known. Separation at birth is a profound loss, even when the adoptive home is loving. This is the rupture Verrier named the primal wound.
What surprises adoptees when they enter addiction recovery?
In recovery, the noise the substance silenced comes back. Old attachment fears resurface. Coming out of the fog can bring grief and rupture that standard treatment rarely names.
When the substance stops, the feelings return. The hypervigilance around relationships comes back into the body. Recovery groups ask for connection, which is the exact place the wound lives. Lisa could not speak in a meeting for two years.
This is why an adoption-sensitive therapist matters so much. Coming out of the fog can surface grief no one prepared the adoptee to feel. Without that support, recovery can stall in isolation.
Can reuniting with biological family reopen the wound?
Reunion can bring belonging and genetic mirroring. It can also bring secondary rejection, boundary confusion, and even genetic sexual attraction. Preparation and support make the difference.
Finding biological family can be grounding. Seeing your own features in another person can make you feel less alone. Lisa describes it as finally not feeling like an alien.
It can also reopen the original wound. A birth parent may not want contact, which lands as secondary rejection. Relationships can move too fast, with no shared history to repair a misstep. Reunion deserves the same care and preparation as any deep recovery work.
Why do adoptees heal in connection and not in isolation?
Recovery for an adoptee is more than abstinence. The nervous system needs safe, regulated relationships to feel met. We heal in connection, and isolation keeps the survival pattern intact.
For an adoptee, recovery is about finding people. A tribe. A chosen family where belonging feels real. Lisa found a group of women who could co-regulate with her and stay honest.
The practice is small and repeated. Checking an assumption out loud. Letting someone be honest in return. Choosing people who can regulate their own stress. Connection is where the repair slowly happens.
Why is adoption, attachment, and addiction a Biology of Trauma® issue?
These patterns live in the body. Disconnection runs through the attachment rupture, Dysregulation through the hypervigilance, and Disease through the inflammation. Naming the pattern opens the path to repair.
This is the lens Dr. Aimie brings to every topic. The five patterns of stored trauma live in the body, and they live here clearly. Disconnection shows up as the attachment rupture and the loss of trust. Dysregulation shows up as the hypervigilance and inner adrenaline. Disease shows up as the inflammation that follows early stress.
What Lisa shares from lived experience confirms what the body keeps revealing. Understanding the pattern is a start. The repair comes through safe, regulated experience over time.
FAQ
Why do I feel like I can't trust people even when I want to?This often comes from an early attachment rupture. The body learned, before words, that closeness was not safe. That expectation lives in the nervous system, below logic. It is a survival pattern, and it can soften through safe, repeated connection.
Why does drinking or using feel like relief instead of fun?For a hypervigilant nervous system, a substance quiets a constant inner alarm. The adrenaline drops. The inner critic softens. The relief is real, which is why it can take hold. It is the body reaching for regulation it never fully received.
Was I traumatized if I was adopted as a baby?Attachment begins in utero. A newborn already knows the birth mother. Separation at birth still registers as a profound loss, even in a loving home. This is what Verrier named the primal wound, and it is real regardless of how early the adoption happened.
Why is my recovery harder than other people's?For an adoptee, recovery is more than stopping a substance. Old attachment fears resurface as the numbing stops. Connection, the core of most recovery, is also the place the wound lives. An adoption-sensitive therapist can make a real difference here.
Should I look for my birth family in recovery?Reunion can bring belonging and answers. It can also bring secondary rejection or boundary confusion. There is no single right answer. If you choose it, prepare with support, and hold realistic expectations for what reunion can and cannot heal.
Helpful Research
Schindler A. Attachment and Substance Use Disorders—Theoretical Models, Empirical Evidence, and Implications for Treatment. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2019 Oct 15;10:727.
Westermeyer J, Bennett L, Thuras P, Yoon G. Substance use disorder among adoptees: a clinical comparative study. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. 2007;33(3):455-466.
Slopen N, Loucks EB, Appleton AA, Kawachi I, Kubzansky LD, Non AL, Buka S, Gilman SE. Early origins of inflammation: An examination of prenatal and childhood social adversity in a prospective cohort study. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2015 Jan;51:403-413.
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