1 in 4 people are touched by adoption. Adopted and foster care people are the highest minority of people represented in institutions and struggling with drug and alcohol problems.
Addiction starts from trauma so it makes sense that Adopted people can struggle as being separated from ones Mother and biological family is a trauma that is now being recognized.
- Are you an adopted person battling with addiction issues and want to stop?
- Are you having feelings around being adopted that you wish you could share about honestly and safely.
- Are you struggling to find your voice due to loyalty issues towards your adopted family?
- Are you wanting to search for your Birth family and don’t know where to begin?
- Are you already in long-term reunion and still struggling with adoption issues?
I offer one on one-phone sessions or a courier service for an individual or the whole family.
I work alongside therapists and a team of people to help you heal and move forward in spite of these unresolved issues.
My goal is to help guide the adopted person through their feelings surrounding adoption.
Give them tools to maintain sobriety while healing the adoption piece.
Give tools and guidance to the whole family so that they can heal individually and support one another.
Using my training as a recovery specialist, my experience as an adopted person in long term recovery and reunion. I will take time with my clients helping them unravel these complexities that surround the adoption experience.
Contact Zara for Adoption Recovery Coaching.
Zara shares her own story as a recovering drug addict and alcoholic sober since she was 22 years old.
Adopted and Foster teens /adults are the highest minority of people to be over represented in mental health facilities and prisons.
They are at four times the risk of committing suicide than a regular teen.
Even though we have these statistics, I believe that the coloration between the two is still over looked.
For me, as an addict, using drugs and alcohol was a way to run from a deep pain and void. No one at the time knew how to help me deal with, what I now know, is a deep grief.
I believe in order to truly recover we need to heal our grief and loss, feel it, face it in a gentle way in order to move forward.
When I share about my journey of addiction and being adopted I talk a lot about the grief and healing.
I was lucky enough to get sober when I was 22 years of age and have had tremendous support over the years.
I find working with the teens and their families incredibly rewarding. After someone that has struggled myself to be able to have found a sense of purpose by sharing about it is indeed an incredible gift.
I tell my teens that all the time, that they to, one day can talk about being adopted and help educate.
I also like to share that it really is possible to lead a very happy fulfilling life sober even with unresolved issues and in spite of not having all of our answers.
Adoption Trauma Consultant/Sober Coach
Mental health profession
Do you have adopted clients that are struggling and you are unsure of how to help them?
Families
Do you have a teenage/young adopted person that is struggling with addiction and their identity surrounding their adoption?
Are you an Adopted teenager,or adult struggling with your feelings surrounding adoption?
Are you an Adopted person starting to search or struggling with being reunited?
For years Zara has spoken about the issues of Adoption and addiction and her work has lead her to became an Adoption Trauma Consultant (working alongside therapists to get the best help for the adopted person in your life). Zara also works as a sober recovery coach, helping adoptees stay sober and with any issues coming up around their adoption, and recovery.
An educator of the adoption trauma experience, supporting therapists and those in therapy ,families that are struggling, particular emphasis on teenage adoptees struggling with addiction and adoptees of all ages in reunion.
Using ‘lived experienced’ and her knowledge of the whole adoption experience , Zara helps educate the mental health profession about the life long impact and the trauma of adoption so that they better help their client. Zara works alongside a high caliber of therapists who working together will evaluate and give the best treatment for your adopted person.
Zara’s talks focuses on Addiction and Adoption including, search reunion, motherhood.
Zara has 28 years of recovery from drugs and alcohol and believes by helping the adopted person get rooted and grounded within themselves they will be able to achieve continued sobriety and a way to mange these complicated feelings and relationships.
As well as educating the mental health profession,Zara works with families and teens, she created ‘Adoptionunmasked workshops’ where she uses her experience as a songwriter, to help the teens express themselves through the written word and they together have created some wonderful songs.
To book Zara for a consultation or a talk please email her at phillipszara4@gmail.com
Zara will work with you individually or as a group,guiding you to resources for you to better understand the adopted person and guide the adopted person and their families to healing
Professional Public Speaker
Zara has presented at:
Zara has presented at:
- Beth Israel Medical Center Stuyvesant Square Addiction Programs One-Day Adoption Conference Presenter and Panel Expert
- Presented- Silent Partners: Adoption and Addiction at the NYC Chapter Employee Assistance Professionals Meeting
- Presented- Relinquishment Trauma at the National Association of Social Workers Addictions Institute Yearly Conference
- Presented- Silent Partners: Adoption and Addiction at The Hazelden Foundation Education Series
- Silent Partners Adoption and Addiction at The Center For Living Education Series
- St John’s University Adoption Initiative Conferences
- American Adoption Congress
- Touched by Adoption
- American Association of Adoption Attorneys
- Joe Solls Conference
- The Hyde School for the past 4 years
- Music Cares
- Mountainside
Presenting on Adoption and Addiction
For the last five years Zara has been working with adopted families where teens are struggling with addiction and relationships. She runs the Adoption UnMasked workshops, creating music with adopted adolescents who are struggling with addiction or with just being adopted.
“I was a very lost, broken hearted, depressed young woman who could not go a day without taking something to change the way I felt. I did not care if I was dead or alive and yet I had that moment of clarity because one kind person told me that I could get well. In that brief moment I believed them; I reached out my hand and others took it.
I believe that none of us can tread this road alone, but, together, we can achieve the unimaginable.
I have heard so many stories of addiction, loss and pain, but what I have been shown on this journey, is that love really does prevail, That by reaching out, taking the risk, to ask for help changes one’s whole life in ways that I had never truly imagine possible.
There is no doubt in my mind that the written, sung and acted word have saved me from myself over and over again. Through grieving and healing, I found my voice and by sharing my voice and my vulnerability I have connected with a community of people whom I would never have met.”
Speaking about Adoption Issues
Zara has spoken on the lifelong impact of adoption, topics covering.
- Search and reunion.
- Addiction and Adoption.
- The journey to motherhood and the impact of an adopted person having their own children.
At the 31st Annual American Adoption Congress Conference VOICES OF ADOPTION SPEAKING OUR TRUTH, RESTORING OUR RIGHTS , Zara presented: ROOTS UNKNOWN – HEALING THE ADOPTION EXPERIENCE Talking about her experience and journey as an adopted woman, her search and reunion, becoming a mother, the death of her adoptive mother and how these life events affected the adoption experience. She also discussed the history behind her book Mother Me, its writing and London publication and how that inspired her to make the film Roots Unknown.
Talking about Addiction and Recovery
Zara shares her own story as a recovering drug addict and alcoholic sober since she was 22 years old.
“For me, as an addict, using drugs and alcohol was a way to run from a deep pain and void. No one at the time knew how to help me deal with, what I now know, is a deep grief.”
Musical Expression
Zara works with adopted teens songwriting, teaching them how to write a song, and focusing on lyric writing and singing by the end of each workshop once the song is complete there is a performance to the parents.
Helping Children, Teens and Families
Zara’s Adoption UnMasked workshops consist of breaking the parents and teenagers into groups allowing people to talk freely and openly about their true deep feelings surrounding the adoption experience and then bringing them all back together to start the healing.
