EP 179: Why Do Adoptees Struggle With Addiction? | Lisa CoppolaEP 179: Why Do Adoptees Struggle With Addiction? | Lisa Coppola
The Biology of Trauma™ With Dr. Aimie
Dr. Aimie Apigian and adoptee Lisa Coppola talk about how early attachment rupture and adoption experiences can shape addiction and recovery. They share personal stories and practical ideas for finding safety and healing through connection rather than relying on substances.
41:26•23 Jun 2026
Adoption, Attachment and Addiction: Lisa Coppola on Healing Through Connection
Episode Overview
- Early attachment rupture can wire the nervous system for survival, making substances feel like the first real relief from constant inner stress.
- Adoptees often face four hidden losses: history, trust, health, and self-trust, which can resurface strongly during addiction recovery.
- True recovery for adoptees usually needs more than abstinence; it depends on safe, honest relationships and co-regulating peer support.
- Adoption-sensitive therapy and carefully chosen friendships help adoptees challenge assumptions about rejection and abandonment.
- Life events such as reunion with birth family can increase relapse risk, so preparation, support and rest are crucial safeguards.
“We heal in relationships. We heal in connection. Healing in isolation is not a thing.”
What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? This conversation between Dr. Aimie Apigian and adoptee-in-recovery Lisa Coppola (known as Elsie) tackles adoption, attachment and addiction in a way that feels raw, honest and practical all at once. You’ll hear Lisa share how being adopted at one month old shaped her nervous system long before she ever picked up alcohol.
She describes lifelong hypervigilance, obsessive rituals and a constant fear of losing people, and how drinking at 13 felt like stepping under an overpass during a thunderstorm – sudden relief from relentless inner turmoil. The episode focuses on why substances can feel especially magnetic for adoptees, as they shut down inner critics and intense adrenaline, and why sobriety alone doesn’t fix the deeper pain.
Lisa lays out “four hidden losses” adoptees face: loss of history, loss of trust, loss of health, and loss of self-trust through denied grief. Each loss is tied back to early attachment rupture and a stress response wired for survival instead of connection. Dr. Aimie brings in the biological side, challenging old ideas that newborn adoption is somehow less traumatic and stressing how attachment begins in utero.
Together, they show how trauma can live in the body as a survival pattern beneath words, meaning healing has to happen through real-life experiences of safe connection. For those in recovery or supporting someone adopted or with early separation (NICU, foster care, birth complications), you’ll get concrete ideas: adoption-sensitive therapy, carefully chosen friendships, checking assumptions in relationships, and building “co-regulating” groups that feel like chosen family. As Lisa puts it, "We heal in relationships. We heal in connection.
Healing in isolation is not a thing." If you’ve ever wondered why stopping a substance isn’t the whole story, this episode might leave you asking: who could be part of your healing circle, and what would safer connection look like for you?
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