On Addiction: Denial

Transcript of a Sage Hill Live Fully Podcast conversation with Dr. Chip Dodd. Lightly edited for readability; speaker labels omitted.

You're listening to the Sage Show podcast on addiction with Dr. Chip Dodd Dodd and Phil Herndon. This is a new weekly podcast recorded at the Center for Professional Excellence. So let's go all the way back to your church. You go to that church, and you're hungry for connection. Mhmm. And on some level, you're tired of living afraid, and Oh, yeah. You wish that you had a place to go to say, this is how I'm living. Could I be loved like this? So that, you know, your life is joined with within yourself. It's it's integrated and congruent, and you you you feel good because you're living clean. You're living look, I'm a I'm an honest person, and I like that. Mhmm. And then allow that allows you to connect to other people. How come you didn't have access to what's obvious to me and you now? Yeah. Well, the the thing is denial. So I mean, you can go off on denial here, but denial is the defense, the foundation upon which addiction survives, because denial is what we think of as, you know, ignoring the evident, or not telling the truth about the obvious. So we literally get connect with each other, stay joined to each other through denial, and the addiction cannot survive where the if denial is snapped. Mhmm. So denial is how addiction continues to just sneak into our houses, steal our children, steal our marriages, steal our hearts, steal our brains, and just takes over. You know? You went to a church where you loved being and no one in that building had access to truly being able to live the connection you were craving, and that's a it's not a disparagement on the church. No. It's actually an accusation about addiction and its power related to denial, so maybe you can talk to us about denial if you'd like.

You know, denial, just thinking of going back in my memories, you know, great people I met, great people I knew, some of them I still do, and, you know, I'm just struck by how often in my own head I would say, Well, it's just this. Well, it's just a little wine, or I mean, it's just taking the edge off, or She was just doing this, or she just meant that. Yeah. That little phrase on that can kinda ease off into minimization too, but in my own life, the denial has been in the form of, this isn't really what I think it is. This isn't really what I'm seeing. This isn't it couldn't be that bad. Yeah. And that, you know, God would hear things, true things, church and discipleship groups, that kind of thing, and I would go, okay, well, this probably just I probably just need to do so and so. Yeah. Not touching the emotional world Yeah. All the way. If I do this,

this will fix me. This study, that study. Change what I feel. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. Yeah. You know, we have that little thing, with little thing, little kind of a mantra about, you know, children learn the rules of denial. You know, you don't really see what you see, you don't really you can go through that if you would, but like, you know, there there really are some hard fast rules that if you if you could embody denial, and you know, denial would be that mean school teacher that said, this is how this thing works. Yeah. This is how this classroom operates. Yeah. And if you want to belong and matter in this classroom, here's how it works. Yeah. View the rules, and there's your role. Yes. And so in denial literally literally means blindness. So, look, you and I both grew up in denial. It was it's like I didn't know that I was in denial. I did not know that I was denying. Denying is not lying. It's literally denial allows us to put what's actually happening in our lives emotionally in a place that's locked up. I mean, I don't know. It's not there. So denial literally means I do not see. K? So that's the number one rule that alcoholism or addiction in and of itself demands in a relational system. So let's go with the family, a relational system, say three, four, five people. And denial, led to alcoholism or other addictions says, I don't see what I'm seeing. So addiction is dictating. It says, you don't see what you're seeing, and it's spoken overtly or covertly through the person who's using, drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, whatever. So somebody important looks at a child and says, you don't see what you think you see. Yeah. So the child who craves emotional and spiritual attachment says, oh, so love has to do with these rules and this role. So I don't see what I see. So don't see. Don't see. First rule. And how come I don't see? It's imperative that I not see because if I see, I'm going to feel. And all the brain research beautifully points out now this proof of denial because if you see something, you'll feel it. So we know that that sight, the visual cortex, the neurochemical, experience of light coming into the brain, it passes into the part of the brain, the feeling brain. What we see, we feel. So if you don't see, you don't feel. Now the reason you don't feel, so there's don't see, don't feel. The reason you don't feel is because once you feel, you'll need. If you need, you're vulnerable, and you're gonna be reaching out to the very people who, can meet those needs, but they're telling you, you better not have a need for me to stay sober or for me to change or for me to look at myself or for me to become vulnerable to you. So don't see, don't feel, don't need, and if I don't need, I won't talk. So don't talk. Don't talk about what's actually happening inside of you. Don't access the internal experience of your life. And if I don't talk, I won't trust. So denial, so tragic to fit into a system, family, work, community. If you don't agree to do the things that support addiction, you're excluded from that society. Mhmm. So because our craving to belong and matter, our craving to connect emotionally and spiritually, like, we're born for relationship. So relationship, instead of being true to oneself and being connected with somebody, I've got to follow a set of rules and a set of rules, so I perform to be loved instead of being present or being myself. So denial requires that I get rid of how I'm made to belong in a in a in a, a relationship. So addiction controls things, so this pandemic

found the people, blocks access to feelings, because feelings is what gears us toward true connection Yeah. With another human being, and the diction operates on denial, which says, look, we got four rules here. You follow them. Don't feel, don't need, Don't dare, under any circumstances, say anything about what's going on. Yes. Right? Yeah. And if you do, you're officially labeled the scapegoat Yeah, boy. Yes. Which is a child that's rejected and carries the pain of the family Mhmm. Or a person. Truth tellers are out. Now what's amazing about this, or tragic, it's just, it's just like like like like Dracula has has come into our world and bitten so many people that we don't even know the difference between those who are bitten and are, like, you know, zombie trap zombie, vampires or human anymore. We just talked about alcoholism and drug addiction. We we didn't even we haven't even touched sex addiction. The ultimate powerful anonymous, creeps into our homes through technology Yeah. That that, feel, we don't have words like you're seeing, young 18, 19 year old boy men who have not gone a day since they were 12 and 13 years old without accessing some experience of porn. No doubt about it. So and what we know is that the the reports have said that the sex addiction industry, or rather the sex industry, profits from the sex industry just in terms of visual video and, you know, the trade itself, the profits from the just the porn world are are greater than, the profits of the five major, professional sports

teams. You know, there's a I had them bookmark actually, just on what you're saying here, just a couple of things here. It's estimated that 40,000,000 Americans regularly visit porn sites. Of all the internet downloads on the internet, all of them, 35% are related to porn. There are There's millions of transactions. There are approximately 68,000,000 pornographic search queries per day. How many? 68,000,000 per day. It's amazing, 2,500,000,000 emails sent or received every day contain pornography, and every thirty nine minutes, a new pornography video is being created in The United States Of America, statistically. It's mind boggling. It is mind boggling, and it's it's the drug use, it's the drug that can be used invisibly. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah. And so, so go past that. Let's go to, you know, the the the food addiction. I mean, processed food, high loads of carbohydrates and sugar, I mean, it it it becomes the a form of comforting ourselves rather than giving ourselves energy to move, to live fully in in relationship. Oh, and that one is is very painful for me. That's my own experience, but, you know,

I say this with hopefully discretion, but you know, what you just talked about killed my mother. Addiction to food. I mean, and it's not always about obesity, but I mean, and, you know, God bless compassion upon so many people. This is obesity is, not a problem of willfulness. No. Most cases, it's a problem of addiction. Yes. Think about diabetes, from what I've heard, is the number one relapse in sickness in this country, And which means that a person doesn't even though they have the information about how to address their their their diabetes, the having to deal not knowing how to access dealing with diabetes emotionally keeps a person from living their recovery. They have the access to the information and the medicine Yes. And and the insulin. Cannot slash, will not do it, and it's not a will not problem

because, like we go back to these, these people we've been treating, we've been treating some of the greatest, smartest people that the world can create in the educational system, or or the talent system, for that matter, pro athletes, musicians who have just achieved incredible things. Yes. They're intelligent. Mhmm. They're tough as nails. They have plenty of willpower, and these people, at least in the beginning wanted to do something good. They're they're moral people or they're, concerned people, okay? So they're intelligent, they're tough, and they're concerned. They want to contribute. And if those three things because these people are smart enough to know and tough enough to stop and good enough to to know the difference, and if they don't stop, then they're obviously it's not an intelligence issue. It's not a it's not a willpower issue. It's not a concerned moral issue. It's an emotional issue. Yeah. And we live in a country that would do almost anything to avoid dealing with feelings. Now even the feelings industry, about feeling good industry, and the mindfulness industry, and the being well balanced industry, and the being, you know, transparent industry, it's an industry, You see? And so it it it it makes dollar bills and and and also it's a way of staying in denial. Anything that we use that takes us away from dealing with our lives emotionally and then spiritually is part of addiction. It's part of the sickness, and and and the only way, that it's ever going to change is through minorities. Minorities are people who will always be minorities going ahead and getting their recoveries from what ails them and getting recovery of who they're made to be regardless of what everyone and everything else is doing, and there is a group of people that is genuinely living in relationship with themselves, others, and God all over The United States, but it's a minority because if we do the numbers, if you look at the hundred million alcoholic and drug addicts, and let's just say that there are ten million pharmaceutical drug addicts. Oh, my goodness. I had an aunt that that that that, filled her drug addiction by being on the well-being committee at her church, taking meals to shut ins and sick people, going to their medicine cabinets in a very small rural community and feeding her addiction. So medicine cabinet addiction. Okay, so let's take ten million and do the math again. Three times 10 is 30, thirty plus ten is forty, so that's a hundred and forty million people either addicts or set up to become addicts or removed from themselves emotionally. One hundred and forty million. We didn't talk about numbers related to sex trade, sex addiction. We didn't talk about gambling addiction. We didn't talk about food addiction. We haven't even hit there, so so Phil, we can easily climb up the numbers to hit a hundred and eighty million hundred and eighty million people in The United States Of America are addicted. Yeah. Addicted, and that is a pandemic.

And here's the thing with that, that it is a pandemic, and if you have, what was the number? One eighty? One eighty. If you have a hundred and eighty million people addicted, that means there are a hundred and eighty million people walking around that cannot access the very language we have that creates true connection. Yes. Which means cannot cooperate with other people, cannot be intimate with other people, cannot wish good for other people, cannot be tell the truth to other people. I mean, there's just a whole lot of tendrils from that. And you're describing the people who are in an active, what we think of as active addiction, but they have the addiction to control. So they're communicating from the pulpits and the science labs and the, the educational system and, wherever it is. They're communicating some form of avoidance of dealing with neediness. Yeah. So you can't have a reformation, in this country if all the leaders are teaching us everything we can possibly do to avoid having to be in genuine need. Yeah. So, you know, our god gets smaller, our communities get smaller, and, I was talking to Steve, and, James said that stoicism is making a pretty strong come comeback. He's here in podcast, and what stoicism is about is about removal from participation and connection to life on life's terms, overcoming

life. And we've already if you stick with the premise, you know, the philosophical premise, we've done Epicureanism for a long time. Yeah. Eat, drink, and be merry for a long time, and now the pendulum doesn't swing to let's get truthful about our insides. It's swinging to let's just say nothing and do nothing at all. Yeah, so denial runs the country because if there are a hundred and eighty million people involved in addiction, and there are, gosh, and you know there are fifty million at least under the age 14. Oh, it's ugly. So, hundred and eighty million is, out of 310,000,000 people in this country. And, that that there's another, easily, several million that just don't have a clue Mhmm. That anything's going on at all. So what drives this country? Addiction. And what drives, allows the addiction to continue? Denial. And, unless we get, recovery from and you're not gonna get recovery from addiction until you have recovery of yourself. Unless there's treatment, focus, education, prevention, amelioration related to emotional awakening, genuine emotional awakening, you're not going to have change. So, frankly put, addiction sells, and denial promotes it, and we're trying to get somewhere we can't go, and where we're trying to go is up, and where we're headed is down. And those are just the facts. Yeah. And, the individual doesn't have to live that way, but our society is living that way. Yeah.

Okay. Well, we've, That's a problem. That's a problem. That's a problem. Pandemic is a problem. We got a bunch of zeroes, a bunch of millions, about a lot of people, with a pandemic deal, like addiction and what drives it, what keeps it going, all that kind of stuff. So, natural question is, okay. Well, we've done a really good job of painting all the dark paint we can on this. What what can be done? Like like down earth in the dirt, what can be done? Well, there is get help but there is a great deal of material that's extant related to, recovery. I mean, there's all kinds of material in adult children of alcoholism. There's Alcoholics Anonymous, the twelve steps of Alcoholic Anonymous anonymous. All kinds of material written about alcoholism. My fear is that there there's lots of solution available to help us. My concern is, though, that if it does not help a person address themselves as emotional and spiritual creatures, this solution is, a stopgap or temporary and will lead to more misery because, the solution a person is looking for doesn't come. So whatever a person whatever you need to do if you're listening to this to find yourself emotionally and spiritually is the direction to take. Anything that you're trained in to take you away from dealing with yourself as an emotional and spiritual creature, is is ultimately not going to help you. We're gonna talk a whole lot more about what it means emotionally, but look, I wrote a book years ago called The Voice of the Heart, and it's not about feelings for feelings' sake. It's about the gift of what feelings are made to to do for us. And guess what? A new study, I mean, it's a longitudinal study, just came out, not too long ago, and it shows the top 10, things that people with long lifespans do, the things that, seem to support and reinforce living a long life. And out of the 10, things, to do to live a long life, the top two number one was social connection, and number two was close relationships. So there is the answer, and clean air was like number 10, exercise was seven, cardiac health was, somewhere like six, you know, it was just nutrition was zoned down. It's relationship, relationship, relationship. Not relationship as a thing, but relationship as a way of life. Now, we are so relational, if we can't find gratification in relationship, then we're going to find it in something other than that. We're going to have to also start using reason, the frontal lobe, to articulate what's happening in our hearts, or even articulate what's called the dark region of the brain, which is the emotional region of the brain. Emotion matters more than reason, because reason clearly a person can clearly be reasoned into seeing that they have a problem called addiction, but it doesn't address the solution because the solution is emotional. If a person is emotionally awake, if a person becomes conscious of conscience, if a person becomes attached again to, hoping, and if that hope becomes the energy of creation and anger, a person is saying yes to how they're made, and they're going to get sober and stay sober. They're not gonna just stay sober. They're gonna live fully because living fully is what addiction is an attempt to get to anyway without paying the price of what has become inaccessible. Now once feelings become accessible, it's time to deal. Deal with your feelings, and we know we do that by feeling them, eight feelings, The Voice of the Heart. Feel your feelings. Tell the truth about them to the right people, and give them through the process because there is something bigger going on than what we can control, and there's a process that runs it, and God owns it. Mhmm. So that's a that's a stepping into a start, and the tragedy is, guys, whoever is listening to this, you're going to have to work hard to find access to the world of feelings because you're living in a place, even in the recovery community, that will almost do anything, even will talk about feelings but not help you find them. And you're not doing it for the sake of feelings, you're doing it because of what feelings can take you to. Get The Voice of the Heart. Get the book The Voice of the Heart. Get Needs of the Heart. Get, the bookkeeping heart, and it steps us into all those things. And then find therapists or groups or people who help you work on naming what's happening inside your chest. More than just what you think about it, what's your experience of your life. Find your story and tell it.

So bless you guys. That's a great, you said you said, Well, this this is the start, so that start's a good place to end here for now Yeah. For us. So we're gonna keep we're gonna keep kinda punching into this. Yeah. Because this is Phil, this is I mean, I I I may be talking, like, with pressured speech, but this is real. Oh, yeah. I mean, this affects our children. This affects the future, and recovery affects the future too. Recovery affects our children too. Mhmm. Recovery affects the teachers that are gonna be teaching in the future, and the the the who's gonna run the government and, people caring about each other next door. Yeah. Oh, that was worth a couple the other day that that she said, I know they heard us fighting. I know they heard neighbors heard furniture, the sound of furniture crashing, because this was repetitive. And she said, I know they heard us. I said, but no one spoke or showed it or said it. Right? And she said, correct.

So there's denial. Wow. Alright. We'll stop there. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll look for you next time. Yeah. Thanks for listening, everyone, and look forward to talking to you more, Phil. We're gonna it's gonna become a little, you know, more solution. We need to know what the problem is, so God bless you guys.