Just Keep Swimming

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 Hey, everybody. Welcome back in to the Sage Hill Podcast. Glad you're with us today. This is Phil Herndon along with Chip Dodd. Hello, Chip. Hey, Phil. We, we've been in a series on addiction, recovery. Yeah. Last time we talked about the Apgar, you know, we're crave we're craving human beings. And Mhmm. Today, I'm, frankly, gonna let you explain this because the the name of this one, named by you, is, Just Keep Swimming. See? You set me up again. You know, this is the second take on this thing. So so, basically, Phil says if it's not witty or funny, it's my idea. And if we do a third, I'm gonna do it again. If it goes over really well, it was you. Full credit. Just keeps swimming. It comes from a character in in Finding Nemo, which came out sixteen years ago. But, I mean, almost everyone who's alive knows of the movie, and most people know the reference to Just Keep Swimming's from Dory. Dory is a character in the movie that is significantly, cognitively impaired, would you say? Yeah. Did you see it? Short term memory loss for sure. Short term memory loss for sure. And, but one thing she continues to say that she herself never forgets is just keep swimming Mhmm. Which is what we're gonna talk about today is go ahead and dare to just keep hoping and that even when it goes against all of our cognitive capacities. Do you know? And by the way, while we're on that, Einstein is referred to have said that the gray matter or the thinking brain, frontal lobe, actually is gray, meaning that it and of itself doesn't have any personality. That and we make the pancognitive error that thinking that just because we can think it and because we can reason, that is sort of all there is and the answer to every problem. Dory's telling us that, Dory compared to Einstein Wow. I'm being funny. Sure are. That what she says is that hope is in us, and we really, have to go through a whole lot of gymnastics to attempt to get away from it. Mhmm. And she is so impaired that she can't stop it from being a part of her. True. Just like we talked about the Apgar. We come into life hoping. Mhmm. And that is sort of that eternal flame within us that doesn't give up on wishing that life were a certain way, and it doesn't stop no matter what we do to stop it. It's more powerful than we are, frankly. You think that's true? I do think it's true. Yes. More powerful than we are for sure. Well, it's kinda crazy. It's more powerful than we are, but what are we talking about comparing it to except that it's more powerful than we are, meaning that we will attempt to stop it. Mhmm. But there's something in us more powerful than our attempts. So that cognitive capacity, our past experiences, the illogical, matter of hope when all seems lost, yet we continue to sort of cling. And we cling for a reason. And where where hope has been affirmed, we cling even harder. So Mhmm. You know, you you introduced me to an experiment from, the I believe the, scientist's last name was Hoffer. Was that Kurt Richter? Kurt Richter. Hoffer. You know, Hoffer. Hoffer Richter. You know, looking for Nemo, finding Nemo, Nemo, you know,

Einstein, Dory, you know. Hey. Enjoy this. Look behind the scenes, folks. Yeah. Go ahead. So there was an experiment, Johns Hopkins performed in the nineteen fifties. It's really kind of a gruesome deal. Like, I don't think this would happen now. I I think that it would not be allowed in today. It's kinda rough. So here's here's the kind of bottom line. Cursor to the, the electric box of the shocking Yeah. Animals. That us old hands looked at in in experimental psych Yeah. In grad school days. So this John Hopkins Johns Hopkins professor Kurt Richter did this experiment in the fifties. He took domesticated rats and wild rats. So the first group, he, he got these domesticated rats, and he he took one of them and and put it in a big container of water and flopped it and watched it drown. Yeah. It, swam around the surface and then dove to the bottom, lasted two minutes Uh-huh. Before it died. Two more of the 12, so three total, same exact thing, much the same way. Nine of these domesticated rats Mhmm. The the the tame one, so to speak, swam literally for days before they gave up. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. So then he took these wild rats. He took them off the street That's tough guys. Out of trash can. Two bombers. He the the study quotes that, they were recently trapped and were, quote, fierce and aggressive. Yeah. One at a time, we dropped them in the water, and, within just a few minutes of being in the water, all thirty four of them died.

Just the opposite of what we would tend to think. Yeah. You'd think the pampered, tame, domesticated ones would you know, we wouldn't because they're soft. They wouldn't let them eat. Man, you street guys Those that eat well and can depend upon the meal and trust and, are connected. Yeah. So, Ricker, like, what what's the deal? He expected what you and I were talking about. Mhmm. Why did these fierce ones, you know, die promptly, pretty much promptly when they hit the water and, only a small number of the the tamers did? He his this is a quote. The answer in his own words, hope. Yeah. He said, you know, went on to with some other stuff, and I've got a study in front of me here. But he said this. He said, what he what he did that wasn't mentioned earlier is with these domesticated, mice, rats, he took them out of the water for just a few minutes. Mhmm. Took them out just just a few minutes, right at the time he would have thought they would have died, and put them back in the water. And he said he quotes again and says, the rats quickly learned that the situation is actually not hopeless at all and that this small interlude made a huge difference. He said after the elimination of hopelessness, the rats do not die. That's amazing. Isn't that crazy? So,

and You had a you you had a a a The last statement here gets right back to to Dory. Get this. We all need a reason to keep swimming. Yeah. I think that's where I I I connected this these things that didn't seem to be connected. When I read that experiment you had shown me, I thought, well, that's Dory. Uh-huh. Just keep swimming. Uh-huh. And it's like that rat experiment show. We we humans, we're not rats, but we cannot get away from hope. Yeah. And, you know, that that's so amazing too because we we you know, you and I have both been, attempted to be tough guys. We're survivors. Understandable, sort of a structure to take on because, pain seems to be our past experiences seem to show that weakness is related to admission of need or admission of feelings or admission of, of having, experienced loss and pain. So, you know, we tend to think that the survivor is the strong one, but it turns out the thriver is the one that's connected to oneself. Mhmm. In other words, has faced hope, doesn't run from it, and it faces that even when it seems foolish, it's still there. And those same thrivers also we find are connected to others that they have a sense that something might come and rescue them, that there's a place to go or a thing to wait on. And they also tend to believe on some level, cling on some level to that there just might be some kind of god that is involved in our daily affairs.

Reminds me that little parable you tell about the the boy digging through the horse manure. Oh, yeah. And yeah. So you want me to tell that? Yeah. Okay. The I'm gonna kinda introduce that and go, hey. Then I'll pick it up. Yeah. Okay. I I'm with you there. So it's I I was concerned it might be a long story without an interlude. So, so there's a little boy who was growing up on a on a farm. He gets up one morning before anyone wakes up, grabs a a biscuit and bacon, and heads down towards the barn. He starts cleaning out, the stalls in the barn. So he takes wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of manure, dumps it out by the garden to be used in the spring for compost, and for a fertilizer, goes back, empties the stall, and keeps on going. And one of the parents wakes up, sees he's not in the house, goes down to the barn, sees him at work, and is just really impressed, goes back to the house, tells the other parent. It's like, wow. You know, Johnny or Jane, however you wanna put it, is down there working. It's like they're impressed. They're glad. They they they slap themselves on the back complimenting their parenting, which, you know, is real. And, then by about midday, they go back down, and Johnny's or Jane's still at it, Has moved from all the stalls and has gone into the hall of the barn, which is the bigger feeding area with lots of manure in there, and it's hauling manure out, dumped in the garden. Red faced, has skipped, lunch, continues to press on. And the parents begin to worry, and they say, Johnny or Jane, you need to stop and take a break. He said, well, you know, I know when to take a break, and I know when I'm thirsty. I can handle this, and I wanna do what I'm doing. Well, this kid's gonna wind up keeping his last nickel. I mean, gonna keep the first nickel he ever made and add to them, and he's gonna be a corporate executive. He's gonna be, she's gonna be president of some great company. And finally, about 04:00 in the afternoon, the parents are worried. They think Johnny may have an obsessive compulsive disorder or some type of, sickness, and they can't stop what he's doing. And go to get some of the neighbors to come over, and they convene about, evening and sit down underneath the the locust trees around the barn. You know, always locust trees around barns, wild locusts. They sit down and say, Johnny, you need to come here. So he finally goes over and sits down a little bit impatiently even though he's tired. He's red faced, and he seems, very alive. And finally, one of the neighbors says, now Johnny, Jane, we we need to know what you're doing. That, you need to stop. And, we what are you doing, Johnny? You kept you kept on all day, worried. He said, well, you know, with this much manure in that barn, I'm I figured there has to be a pony somewhere, and, which is the okay. That's the punts ladder. Right. So you could've told it better, of course. But anyway Oh, but it it does speak to a little story speaks to children hope really well. Yes. They hope out loud really well. And even they make connect things that don't seem to be connected. Mhmm. And one of the neighbors laughs, and the parents look relieved. Oh, oh, oh, oh, it's time for this child to be introduced to reality. And so they laugh. They say now, you know, Jane, Johnny, I think you need to know there's no pony. And the child sort of looks at him and, stands up, goes back into the hall of the barn. After all the manure is gone, takes a shovel and starts digging the dirt. And they're right back to their concerns. And they go to him into the hall of barn, and they say, you know, what are you doing? He said, well, there may not be a pony, but there better be a pearl. And the point is he had to decide as how I'm made right on. Okay. I'm the one who has faith. Reality is but the truth is that I have something in me that trumps reality Mhmm. That I'm made to hope, and I'm not going to stop no matter what you say. Now that's a parable or a fantasy, kinda like the movie August Rush, which is, you know, the guys cute little kids in search of his parents and finds them. The point isn't that that happens. The point is that he continued to hope and believe Mhmm. In spite of reality Mhmm. That, hope is true and not to be given up on even though it may take us to places that aren't as fulfilling as we wished, but there's something there for us to keep us going. And thrivers keep hoping. In fact, Phil, hope is so powerful. I've been doing this experiment for, gosh, I bet twenty years now. I ask people to say, okay. You're in the middle of the ocean. You're a thousand miles from all landmasses. You're not a Navy Seal. You don't know how to tread water like a rat for three days or for days. Okay? Mhmm. In spite of your hope, you you know, you're you're stuck there. No plankton bed is gonna float by that you can climb on almost like a landmass. No whale's gonna swallow you like Jonah and spit you out. No poor pie are gonna come by like a cartoon and you hook to their fins and they take you to this special place. No national guard, no rescue operation, no boats, no cruise ship. You get the picture. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm. And the picture is and these are 10 foot swells too. This isn't just a a little smooth little body of water. It's not a swimming pool. It's an ocean, far away from everything. Now we know that reality says something, and reality is going to have its way. No question about it. Right? Mhmm. And what's gonna happen? The person They're gonna make it. Yeah. And see, we even have a hard time saying they're not gonna make it. They're not gonna make what? We say they're gonna die. They're gonna die. And no matter how many people I've asked to go through this, What are you saying inside yourself about that condition that you're in? Fact is you're gonna die. But you know what? There's something else going on with every group of people I talk to. In spite of reality, they say, but something might happen. Something might occur. And all of those creatures, all those creatures, all of those people, all of those people, what they're saying is that there's something in me that can't give up. Mhmm. And that's cellular, Phil. Mhmm. Even a person who goes out to commit suicide, you know, swims out into the ocean to the to the the distance they can't get back, and they go underwater, the cells of the organism of life protest. Mhmm. Those lungs attempt to push the water away. Mhmm. The the the the the body itself thrashes in its own hope to live. Mhmm. Of course, survival. But survival the purpose of survival is to get to a place of thriving, to survive until hope returns. And we make the huge mistake understandable. To me, it's completely understandable that we become survivors instead of thrivers because our past experiences have told us that hope is foolishness. And, you know, think about some of the sayings about hope. Right? Like, the big one, don't get your hopes up Uh-huh. And then, you know, that way you won't have to feel. Yeah. Or you won't be disappointed. Yeah. Or you won't look foolish. And, you know, so much of our lives I mean, you've got story after story about continuing to hope and then promising yourself afterwards you wouldn't do it again. Mhmm. You know? Because you moved from town to town to town. How hard was it to keep hope going? Yeah.

Well, the simple answer is is very, and the other answer was it was so hard, yet it wouldn't go away. That started my my trip down that that eventually got me through the doors of AA. Yeah. And to the doors back into living. And and and I say in those rooms or in those counseling offices or in that place where we a mentor steps in, a caregiver steps in regardless of what that organization or or or opportunity is. It's like somebody pulled us out of the tank of water that the experimenter was using, petted us for a minute before we went back in Yeah. And we could swim for days. Yeah. So all of us who are still alive still have the opportunity to to thrive. We're made for it, and survival's not enough because when life really hits and we're survivors, we'll sink. Yeah. We won't make it. We will do something to harm ourselves, to have control instead of crying out, reaching out, and taking in the help that is available to us to save us so we can have hope alive. And the only way that happens if we is if is if we just keep swimming. Yeah. You know? In in in recovery, we hear the phrase over and over again, don't quit. Wait. Wait five minutes five minutes before the miracle occurs. And a miracle is something happens to touch us, reach out towards us, some little flicker of light we see in the dark, somebody's email, a text, but we have to be available to it by swimming

to see it when it comes. Right? And what you're describing we've been describing is not white knuckle, hang in there, just just act like it before it comes. It's not that kind of thing. It's a deep from this well we're talking about. Apgar, childhood, addictive processes, shortcuts show up. It's that movement toward life in recovery, as we call it, that gets us to not the white knuckle, but just the real life like hope. Yeah. Recovering from surviving Uh-huh. And doing everything we can to avoid having to be in need and return to thriving, which starts with hoping again in spite of past experiences until hoping again proves or finds new experiences to give us a reason for it. In other words, we're not crazy to have it. And, you know, in the spiritual root system, the the number one thing that happens to people who become survivors is that every survivor on some level is practicing some form of escaping hope hopelessness, hoping less. Yep. And I'm telling you, there's a great strength in, rendering ourselves with less hope. I mean, we Oh, yeah. Yeah. We become strong against instead of strong for. Mhmm. And it's really quite tragic. And and, you know, the it it even the practice of hopeless, the stoicism or religion is built on, the highest form or highest fulfillment in this religion is to actually become apathetic towards hope, that strength, all the way down to our redneck aphorisms that say, hey, man. What goes around comes around. Don't cry over spilled milk. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Ain't gonna matter no way. Ain't gonna matter no way. Or, hey, man. You know, it's always, hey, man. Yeah. And you we've got a a a a thousand. I can't run with the big dogs, man. Get on the porch. Porch. Yeah. Can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. In other words, if you're not tough enough, to survive, then you're not a part of this deal. And and thrivers say, no. I'm not participating in that. Mhmm. I am not going to just simply say that's water under the bridge. I'm gonna go find out where the water went. Yeah. And I'm gonna go recollect my life, at this reservoir where the water goes, unplug it, and start again. Yeah. And that starts with taking the risk of hoping. See, because every time we hope, we're wishing for something we don't yet have, which is a statement of courage. And then the moment we wish for something we don't have, we're facing that we are incomplete in our in and of ourselves, which means we're gonna be afraid. So you can't hope without facing fear. Fear puts us in a position of having to ask for help. So I mean, which reconnects us, and reconnecting us continues to fuel the possibility that something's coming to rescue us. And I say that hope is amazing, though painful, and it is what is made to go beyond reality because it's truer than reality even though reality is what it is. You know? Mhmm. But still we're made to hope in the midst of that. I say the truth trumps reality because thousands and millions of people at death's door through the course they were following through addiction have actually found that survival wasn't enough, that hopelessness was no answer, and that hope taking the risk of of of of taking the risk of risking. And then they learned how to just quit keep swimming through that, and numerous millions have had recovery of who they're made to be for now years and years and years and decades and centuries. Yeah. You know, recovery in and of itself is not new, and hope is not new. And it's something we've gotta keep having the courage to return to, but it happens through relationship with others. Right on. And we keep coming back on

a sorry. As we start wrapping up, we we keep coming back to the fundamental truth that, we are made in a certain way. Yep. And any or everything we attempt to do to get away from that is gonna end up being survival stuff, and and we're gonna have to to to fight through, our attempts to get away in order to get back to how we're made. Boy, that is so true. We we wind up competing against life instead of cooperating with life. Mhmm. And, you know, Phil, we need to do sometime in the near future, we need to do some podcast on really this massive dimensional, separation that we have going on. There's self created versus, god created. There's, you know, I made myself versus I was made a certain way, and I've gotta deal with that. So that that's that's big in terms of what you just said. So Sure.

So let's end with this. I talk about, you know, how far this isn't that far back as far as human history goes. But back in 1784, Benjamin Franklin this is a quote from a thing he he wrote. Said, Hope is an essential constituent of human life. And the guy goes on to say, Research has borne him out. Yeah. True. About that. Research. That's not faith based stuff only. That is, if those of you, you know, those people who can't say something's true unless it's in a test tube, that's neuroscientifically, neurophysiologically, neuroelectrically, chemically proven. And hope is gonna continue to remain an extraordinary mystery, because I don't think they'll ever find the gene to take it out or replace it or or give us an injection to to thwart. Hope is in us, and I think it's something that comes from the eternal.

Right. That's a great, great way to end that. So thank you. Hey, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it, Phil. See you Next time. Bye.