On Addiction: A Way Out

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 Hill podcast on addiction with Dr. Chip Dodd and Phil Herndon. This is a new weekly podcast recorded at the Center for Professional Excellence. Hey, everybody. Welcome back in to the, Sage Hill podcast today from Center for Professional Excellence, CPE, as most of you know it as. And, Chip and I have been talking about hey, Chip. Hey, Phil. How we've been talking how about you? Oh, yeah. I'm here. Yeah. Dang. Those are so low today. Yeah. We've been talking about addiction. Big, big subject as we said last time. Yeah. You know, it's just a big thing, and I think we may I think, we made a pretty big point last week. This thing is gigantic. Yeah. And we even talked, last time we we got together, the the pandemic, with with an epidemic is located to a population or culture. A pandemic has gone beyond all culture and all all geographical areas. It's everywhere, upside down, inside out, as taking control, and my my you know, as we talked about, my giant concern is that the word itself, addiction, is a Latin word. It comes from a it was a legal term, and it ultimately meant the right of a Roman citizen to have ownership of another human being, and I mean addiction is the, the, totalitarianism of Rome. I mean, this is a we're living in a frightening time, Phil. I remember, it reminds me of No Country for Old Men. Tommy Lee Jones. Yes. Tommy Lee Jones. He he in the old days, as a sheriff or deputy, somebody committed a crime or whether it was a drug problem or, drug criminal, the bank robbery, he'd get his horse, and, you you know, even in the modern era, and they'd go out into the badlands, and they'd capture the guy and come home. As, the movie unfolds, Tommy Lee Jones finally says to, I don't know if his wife or somebody said, this thing's just bigger than me. In other words, this thing is so far beyond any capacity to handle that we need, we need, revitalization, whatever you want to call it. We need reformation. We need a reformation of us finding out who we're made to be again so we can do what we're made to do, but I just have a lot of concern. For sure. So we talked about that last time, so I think that was plenty. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Well, you know, yeah, I think we did frame it up last week, how big it is, numbers and stuff like that. Well, you know, there this big word, this big thing addiction, you can read, you can look up, you can Google addiction. It's it'll say something like it's a disease of the brain based on reward centers and chemical things and can't stop doing it despite negative consequences, that kind of thing. But you have a definition that you you've kinda crafted through time that I think really cuts through some of all the other stuff and brings it down to where to where guys like me, who or a lot of guys, people out there in the audience live, addictively and did for years that that defines it, I think, kind of kind of on the shelf where most of us live. Yeah. And I and and and on the shelf, and also,

it it it points to, to a a kind of a territory of living that we spend our time ignoring, but addiction in and of itself is not the badness. What what we do in addiction is often ends up being very, very, corrupt and tragic, and and and just just sad as it can be. But addiction in of itself is really, a person in the beginning especially. It's an impaired attempt, to, find the life we're made to have without paying the price of what it costs to live fully. Addiction is an attempt to find full life without having to deal with the cost of what it it it we have to pay to have a full life. Another way of saying it, it's an impaired attempt to have a full life without having to feel fully. Yeah. I was gonna say, so what's the cost? There's gotta be some way to avoid having to live life on life's terms, because most people who become addicts, we were never, helped or shown or really, led to, know what to do with how we're created as feeling creatures. And it it it it we're you and I are truly created to do one thing in this life and just live fully. Even the DNA imprint, which we won't necessarily get into today, but I won't do next time, but our we're DNA imprinted with a craving to live fully. Mhmm. And as human beings, the only way a human being is fully alive is through relationship. You and I are create are created as emotional and spiritual creatures, created to do one thing thing in life, and it's live fully. But we can't live fully as humans unless we're fully present emotionally and spiritually in relationship with ourselves, others, and God. So it's the very fact that we're created, blueprinted genetically to be to have to live in relationship to find fulfillment means that we're born powerless over how we're created, and either somebody shows us how to live that, we have to have guidance and training to do it, or if nobody shows us or we're ashamed of how we're made because we're genetically wired like that, we have to find a way to live full fully some other way. So So that's where the counterfeit fulfillments come in, relief seeking in some other fashion. That's where lust takes the place of craving, because lust is an attempt to find a satisfaction without having to be vulnerable to neediness, you know? And craving, the craving we're born with for life, exposes us to neediness and and and feelings. So as emotional and spiritual creatures, what's amazing is that if if we don't know what to do with feelings and know how to utilize feelings as tools to live fully in relationship, frankly put, honestly and truly, you become addicted, whether where the person is and the the the the addiction is so much bigger than the classic things, alcohol, drugs. Mhmm. It's control. It's addicted to, achievement, even religion. Anything that takes me away from having to deal with life emotionally

is almost always something that becomes obsessive and compulsive. So if a person is out there saying, well, I mean, I don't I like Netflix. I like Blacklist. I like candy. Yeah. How would a person know, man, I'm I'm an addict. I need help. That's a good question. You know what's funny is, if if I'm an addict and I need help, I'm usually the last person to stop and recognize it. Right? Do you know what I'm saying? Because I built a whole fortress of, minimization and justification and blame and projection and denial, which means blind to seeing my life. However, down inside of every addict, down inside of all of us, there's a little whisper Mhmm. That says, I've got a problem. Yeah. This thing's bigger than me, like Tommy Lee Jones, and this thing owns me, and I'm scared, or I'm angry, or, facing the truth that this thing controls me. I can't stop it. And that's the deal right there. How do we know we're addicted is when we are truly, when candy turns against me, when, what was the other example you used? Candy? Netflix. Netflix. When Netflix turns against me, when I begin to ignore, sacrifice, minimize, or run away from relationally living, then I'm powerless over this thing that I do, and my life becomes unmanageable, which means I start to pay consequences, difficulties at home, distance from the people that I care about, hiding mistakes at work, isolating myself emotionally, keeping secrets, people become things that we have to manage and avoid. I mean, you know, the list of things we talk about with the pitfall of leadership, which we need to do. So powerlessness and unmanageability. But what's wild, Phil, is that when a person faces powerlessness and unmanageability, as you and I both know, what's scary is it returns us to our original inborn powerlessness. I'm created to live in relationship. So we go from addiction to, you know, substance, place, or thing, and when we let go of that, we're rendered vulnerable. And so what's amazing is we'll never learn to say no or never say no to what harms us until we have something to say yes to. So when a person becomes abstinent, admits powerlessness and unmanageability, at that point, someone needs to be able to or help step in to say, let's talk about how you're made. Uh-huh. Let's talk about you as an emotional and spiritual creature. You know? Uh-huh. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. If the gap's not filled with a yes,

I'm never gonna stop saying no. Yeah. I've I've always loved that definition since I heard you say it the first time about, you know, without paying the cost, depending the cost. It is costly to be in a relationship, it's costly to be known, it's costly to not have that thing I go to to get away from myself, my own identity, so, yeah, impaired way, shortcut. Yeah. And you know, we you and I have talked so many times before that if if you're gonna love, and if I'm gonna love, probably one of the worst things we could ever do is have children. If I'm gonna love, probably one of the worst things I could ever do is get married, you know, get into a committed relationship. Oh, yeah. Because as soon as a person gives themselves over to love, they've signed a contract to pain. Yeah. They signed a contract to fear. They signed a contract of hurt, loneliness. They signed a contract of sadness, and sadness is a great expression of love. Whenever we lose someone or or or even even living in a relationship side by side and the person disappears emotionally, that's sad. It makes us want to move to cry out, where are you? So that I can be present with you again, so that we can be together. So as soon as we love, we we're initiated into pain. And if we don't know how to deal with pain, including celebration, then we can't live love, and we're made for the experience, the fullness of love, to love living, to love loving, to love others, to love ourselves, to know that God loves us and we love God. So that's the fullness of life. But if you can't grieve fully, you'll never be able to celebrate fully. So feelings are the deal. So we know this. Addiction is the thing we do to take us away from feelings. Mhmm. Boom. That's the poison. K? That's the spider bite. Yeah. What's the antidote? The antidote to addiction is not more chemicals or more cognitive solutions or more skill based learning. Those are second Trying harder. Oh, boy, that's right on. Or even a lot of treatment programs, they do all the skill based cognitive work. But, see, addiction is not a cognitive problem. There's there's nothing wrong with the brain of the addict in so many ways because in terms of the thinking, brain is thinking whatever it's got to do to get whatever it needs. It's an emotional problem, and it's a limbic issue, so to speak, or matter of the heart, so if we don't know what to do with feelings, then we're not going to get recovery from addiction until we get recovery of who we're made to be, which is a relational creature. Reminds me that Feedings, feelings, feelings. There's a scene,

one of the I'm not a big connoisseur of Lord of the Rings move I can't I can't keep it straight. Yeah. There's a scene where and people make fun of me. I can't remember if it's a dwarf woman falls in love with an elf man or vice versa. One of them falls in love with an elf. You don't know your fantasy character. But there's a scene in which the the man, a woman and man have fallen in love, and they're from different camps. And, Yeah. He's lying there dying, and the woman that loves him is leaning over him, and she looks up at her, like her commander, and says, is this love? If it is, I don't want anything to do with it. Boy, that's well said. She's hurting and scared and afraid and wanting to do anything she has to to get away from it. Yeah. So question about that. Like, you know, well documented, you know, love, relationship, emotional, relational, spiritual creatures, those kinds of things. So, obviously, the question hanging out there, like, can't be ignored is, okay, no addiction. Is this impaired, you know, kinda shortcut I think I'm getting to not having cost pay the cost of living? So what do I do? It's like, okay, I'm seeing I can't live without this thing. What do I do? Yeah. You know,

a great simple question, and as crazy it sounds, there's a great simple answer, and yet it's very, very hard to do. Do you know? Mhmm. And the simple answer of course, we know first step, go to meetings, ask somebody for help, go to treatment, go to therapy, go get help, everything. But once you've given yourself to seeking a solution, what you and I have to bring with solution is h o w plus g o d equals a reduction of e g o. Wow. That's not a car. That's not g o. Most across I've ever heard. Okay. So h o w What would you call that? Acro? I was gonna say acrostic, but I went Rutherford County went accrawl. Well, I didn't. Well, thank you for That's an acrostic is a set a bunch of letters

that mean things. Well, actually that's in accrawl, but you call what you want. Okay. So let's let's h o w plus g o d Yeah. Was a reduction of EGO. So h o w Yeah. Wow. How does that help? Yeah. Well, thanks, Jeff. That's wow. How about that? H o w? H o w, it means I have to bring honesty, openness, and willingness to the process of getting this thing that I've never been able to get and to leave behind the thing that's going to drag me into the pit, okay? So honesty means my ability, including willingness because it all sort of blends together, but my ability to tell the truth about what's actually happening inside of me. And to be able to tell the truth what's happening inside of me, I've got to be able to name, identify, and be willing to express feelings, because the truth about us is what we feel. You know, we talk about sentio ergo sum, the Latin, I feel, therefore I am, which is our way of, committing to a revolution against Kagito ergo san, I think, therefore I am. So honesty is revealing the vulnerability of the truth about what's happening inside of me, and we talk about The Voice of the Heart, the eight feelings God's given us, eight feelings to be able to live fully in a tragic place. Secondly is openness. Openness means that vulnerability to be able to hear from others about their experience and their their capacity to be with us in our feelings. So we feel our feelings, we tell the truth about them, which is openness, hand them over to the process, and then willingness is the ability showing, it's, action. It's, action taken, so risking hope. Willingness is the ability to risk hoping again, because so much of our despair, we've given up. Addicts have given up down inside, you know? They've resigned themselves, like, Hey, look, life's a crap sandwich. Eat it or starve. I remember that. And the way to yeah. So willingness is taking the risk of hoping again, even though past experiences have said that hope is silly. We hope again, and we find new experiences prove our past experiences to be of the past. So h o w is honest honesty, openness, and willingness, plus g o d is good orderly direction. When I become honest, open, and willing, I need somebody in my world to say, This is the way. Walk in it. In other words, to somebody who knows what feelings are, how to live in what the truth is, and they're willing themselves to seek help. In other words, somebody who can tolerate being human themselves and tolerate being in need themselves. I'm going to be attracted to somebody who has what I don't have, so I'm going to seek out doing what they do. So that honesty, opening willingness is saying, I don't know how to do it. Do you? And they say, This is the way. Walk in it. And I give myself to good, orderly direction because if I knew how to live, I'd be living. Right. So somebody's got to show me it's my first time through life. I don't know how to do it. And the fact is, no matter what happens, the beauty of our living is we're WIPs that's not an acronym we're works in progress, and addicts are all about perfection and should ism, when the truth is we're never going to be perfect and all the shoulds in the world aren't going to turn us into somebody perfect. Then what happens next through that process is that we have a diminishment of ego, ego, but ego means all the things we do to ease God out. E g o. And and and I'm not just talking, you know, big God, I'm talking about all the things we do to play God, because ego is a false front. It's the things we do to try to impress, achieve, fool, convict, trick, manipulate other people so they think we're somebody we're not. Because underneath the surface, behind the facade of every one of us who is in recovery, was a person scared to death to think that someone could see who I really am and not kind of puke or look away or say, You don't fit on on the team, you know? That power of toxic shame. And addicts, we we spend our lives comparing our insides to other people's outsides. For sure. I mean, it's a Facebook world. I'm sitting home by myself, and I look on Facebook. Everybody's out there living it up, sharing. I've been at the, you know, this ball, and I my son's just got this award, and my daughter just got, you know she's she's the she's the princess of England. So you know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I compare my insides to other people's outsides and find myself lacking. Well, the truth is I show my insides to other people's insides, and I find out how amazingly alike we are. That's I'm willing to put my ego down to live the true self because there's a true self behind that ego For sure. It's ready to say yes to living. I'll tell you too, you mentioned,

you know, h o w, plus g o d. My own experience has been that it it has got to be in that order. If I did not start with honesty, like, I had to tell God this is old southern expression. Had one of one of the first guys in my life, I got recovery, was, son, you'd rather you'd rather climb a greased flagpole and lie than stand on flat ground and tell the truth, which is true. But, you know, when I started telling more truth than just what I was drinking or what I was doing with my life and all that and started talking about the inside stuff Yeah. Then that content honesty was more natural. Like, if I can do the inside stuff, tell you, tell someone what's going on in me Mhmm. What I'm telling the truth about outside of me, the content is a whole lot easier. Oh, and then The openness, if I if I can be truthful, I can be open and then willing. One thing you've said about willingness, we'll start wrapping up here, but one definition I love, one of our NFL guys talked about this a lot, about two a days and all that stuff, but willingness is putting pain before common sense. Yeah. You know, so if I'm telling the truth in my insides, therefore, being open to what I hear, open to new things, way of living, and putting pain before common sense, then adding the good orderly direction to that

is almost natural. Boy, ain't that something? That's love again. That love is a willingness to be in pain. And then the ego deflation because ego deflation at first felt like everything I had lived every year of my life not having to do. Yeah. Are you understand? This is all I got. Yeah. This is my show. Well, this is a huge subject that we're obviously, we're not through with yet, but what what what do you say to wrap up? You know, you reminded me. I'd you said, I'd rather climb climb a greased flagpole and lie instead of no flat ground and tell the truth. It's amazing. Even in recovery, the biggest thing is to be people who can ask the question and are interacting and living with ourselves, others, and God is, what's the truth? Mhmm. And, of course, the feelings are the truth, the beginning of the truth. But I remember a guy who'd been in recovery for four years. Guy says, hey. Can you go to lunch for me today? You wanna go to lunch? I said, I didn't like the guy. I didn't wanna be with the guy. I didn't wanna be around the guy. And, basically, every time I saw him, my plan was how am I gonna get away. But we worked in the same place at a hospital. Is it me, is it? No. That's funny. See, that's egotflation at death. Right. It reveals the true vulnerability and shame that we all care. You're like, you're not talking about me. I mean, I still when I hear the sound of my name, I still go, oh, crap. Uh-huh. Well, I didn't do it. I didn't do it. Oh, but I still told the guy, no. I have to be in Dallas by 01:00 and then back here at at, four. I didn't have to be in Dallas at 01:00. I just was gonna do whatever I had to do not to go to lunch. Instead of saying, hey. I appreciate it, but I can't or appreciate it or no. Hey. Thanks a lot, but not this time. You know, kinda tell the truth without saying honesty doesn't mean looking at somebody and say, I don't like you. You know? You you you know, you're sickening to me. I can't stand you. That's projection. That's not honest. That's just that's abuse. Okay? So what I did feel this is so this is pathetic, and and sad, I guess, or it's it's really hard not to judge myself, you know? But I thought, oh, crap. What am I gonna do? So I left, the hospital. I drove out to, some place and and went in a store and got a a bacon, lettuce, tomato sandwich at, like, one of these counters that had a quick sack kind of thing. Some independently owned, they had lunch. Drove out to the airport in Denton, Texas and sat out there at the airport watching airplanes and reading for for two hours Yeah. And then drove back to the hospital later, you know, got back early and said, you know, that's insanity. That's insanity. I read a climb, a greased flagpole to tell a lie when telling the truth would actually be easier, and yet that fear, that experience of the past Mhmm. That certainty of what's gonna happen, you know, that works against honesty, openness, and willingness, and again, it works against even knowing the questions to ask, like, how do I tell somebody no? Mhmm. I mean, ain't that a something? So That's amazing. Addiction recovery is not just about absence and saying no. Addiction recovery is about how to say yes and live it. How to live it. And that's where that good or a direction comes in so powerful, you know? Right on. Somebody's gotta show me how to live. I don't know how to do it. I know. Yeah. For sure. Hey, it's good to be with you today. Yeah. It's great. One of the finest men I've ever met. Phil Horner. Wow. Thanks. That's true. It's true. Are you the

the throb beat myself? You could stop hitting the wall. Yes. It's going to stop. Hey. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Hey. Thank y'all. Bye.