What Is Addiction?

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

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com. Hey. This is Stephen James, executive director of Sage Hill Counseling. Thanks for listening to the Sage Hill Live Fully podcast. I'm joined today by my good friend, Dr. Chip Don from chipdon.com. We're discussing our new book, Hope in the Age of Addiction, How to Find Freedom and Restore Your Relationships. Hey, Chip. Hey, Steve. Well, this is the I'm glad we're back. I'm glad we're back too. Yeah. The next next this is the fourth, installment I'm in. In our special addiction series, Hope in the Age of Addiction, which is based on our new book, Hope in the Age of Addiction. And and it's

it's, it's it's a deep dive a little bit, but it's it's not a great deep dive that keeps going down, down, down. It is it is a It's like we're looking at different facets of addiction Yes. Like different components. And focused over and over and over again on the daring to hope in the solution. We speak to the solution over and over and over again as we present the problem. Yeah. So the word addiction, like the Latin root word Mhmm. Means to be devoted to or give oneself over to something completely. Mhmm. It comes from the Latin word, atticus, which means to sacrifice, sell out, betray, and abandon. Yeah. Right? So at first, it sounds like a sacrament that to give yourself or abandon yourself to something completely, which is like the ultimate, like, sort of like surrender to god, you know, like to render over to god. It sounds almost religious in its tone, doesn't it? Yeah. And addiction in so many ways, like an affair, an affair is an is a is an illegitimate attempt illegitimate attempt to get legitimate needs met. So this addiction is like weeds grow next to the real thing. Addiction uses how we're made, a hunger to devote ourselves and give ourselves over to something completely that matters as much or more than life. Right? Right. So addiction takes advantage of how we're created. And so it's it's it's slavery.

It's slavery. It means, like, enslaved. Right? It it it ultimately means we've given our we've we've sold ourselves to this thing Yes. And it owns us now. Yes. Right? So we become its slave. We become its tool to its means. Yes. Right? And And do do what it says or else. Yeah. And and Experience some serious pain. It's like right now, this moment, the here and now moment. I'm struck by the idea when when what when the the powers that be like the smart people, when they were trying to think of a word to describe this process, this thing. Yeah. Like, they chose the word addiction. It's a great It's a great word. Yeah. It's not a scientific word. It's a philosophical word. No. Exact and its roots go way, way back, which means that we kinda had, like, some clarity way, way back Way, way back. About this thing.

So we we talk in the book that there's that there's three main components to addiction, and this is what makes dealing with addiction so hard. Right? Because it doesn't just work on one level. Mhmm. Right? Mhmm. It's not just an emotional and spiritual issue. It's not just a psychological issue. Right. And it's not just a physical issue. Yes. But but it addiction becomes a part of all three of those components of this, like our physiology Yes. Our psychology, and our emotional spiritual makeup. And as you step into that, let us, the reader it's a global statement that addiction ultimately is it's an impaired attempt to find the lives we're made to have. Okay? We're created a certain way, created to find fulfillment without having to pay the price of feeling fully. K? That's a that's the global and that affects everything. Right? And very quickly, as you step into it, when we come back into and get recovery, it's amazing that the one place we're trying to get away from is the place addiction can't get to. Addiction can destroy everything in our lives except how ultimately we're created in heart. Mhmm. So it numbs the heart, anesthetize anesthetizes the heart, makes us have contempt towards our hearts. Because your heart can't stop beating. Yeah. It can't stop walking. Can't stop hoping. It can't stop but it never can get rid of it. So it's amazing. It will attack everything except, I think, ultimately, we call the Imago Dei. It cannot overcome The image of God. The image of God. Yeah. Well and so unlike cancer that's just physiological,

right, or just like or or unlike mental illness like schizophrenia. Right? Which is just psychological. Right? With physiologically too. Yeah. Physiological. It's physiological. Yeah. Or, you know, like, addiction is physiological. Yeah. It is psychological. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Right? And we'll talk about what psychology is. Yeah. And it is emotional and spiritual. Yes. And we we, I think, wisely separate psychology from emotional and spiritual makeup. Those are separate things. Yes. Even though it's it's it's hard to tease apart, but It's also hard to tease apart physiology. Right? Because Yeah. Right? You know? Because now more than ever before, we're we're beginning to associate feelings with chemistry only, which big mistake again. Big mistake. Yeah. But they have neurochemical signatures in them and I can create feelings in you by giving you drugs. Yes. Right? So so the the the humans, we can't think we we like to think of things very cleanly, but how the world works is things are so interconnected. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So we can talk we can break it apart temporarily, but really it's a moving kaleidoscope. Yeah. That's a great everything working at the same time. We can treat addiction. To deal addiction deal with addiction, you have to address it physiologically. Yep. You have to address it psychologically. Yep. And you have to address it emotionally and spiritually. Yes. Any solution that doesn't go after all three of those is not a effective solution.

Amen. If you address it only psychologically, then you're only gonna give yourself more rationale to use when you can't handle things emotionally. If you address it only physically, you do withdraw for the person or you protect the person from withdrawing. Mhmm. Okay? Which, and as soon as they do withdraw, they have to address the psychology and the emotion. Mhmm. If you only dress address it as emotional, people can feel all kinds of feelings, but until they stop the thing that stops them from feeling, the the the place to run away, they never develop resilience. Very self enlightened heroin addict. Addict. Huge. You could be like, the Buddha of enlightenment Yeah. And still just shoot up when you're talking. Yeah. If things get hard enough. See, people addicts are extremely tough people Yes. Because they they fight. Stephen, there's this amazing story. Let me tell a quick story about the power, the physiology, psychology, and emotionality. Okay. Okay. It's astounding what it addiction, it takes away creation from itself, what it's made to do, and uses what it's made to do against itself. Okay? Sounds real weird at first. But Sonia is, who I'm married to, Sonia is like a a amateur horticulturalist. Right? She's a naturalist. So we had this plant called a moon plant that was growing out by this fountain we had. And the moon plant's gorgeous. These beautiful, big, giant, white blooms open at night. They're almost they're like phosphorescent. Wow. In daytime, they close. So they blooms at night. So It's called a moon plant. And you can see it in the dark. I mean, it's like a Wow. Like, you know, a watch that shines in the dark. So she goes out, and she's watering this gorgeous unique plant, and she sees these gigantic caterpillars on it. I mean, they're like like three inches, like, long and big fat green, and they're on the leaves. And she tell well, she yeah. She tells me about it. She says, I'm gonna put a net over the moon plant and watch them grow. I wanna find out what they're gonna turn into. And I'm thinking, you're gonna destroy your moon plant? Yes. It's research. Right? So so she starts doing research, and then she swatches them. And she she takes me out and said, look what's look what's happened. And there are little white feathers growing out of the backs of these caterpillars. One of them had she does a count. She's got a little notebook because she's doing one of them had 31. One of them had eight. One of them had 12. There were five of them. One of them had 14. One of them had, like, six. Little white feathers, you could blow on the feathers, and they would, like, wave in the the the the breath, the wind. Right? So, like, we're watching this activity going on, and they're eating. And the moon plant's being destroyed, and leaves are disappearing, and the blooms are gone, and research is going on. And so she finally finds what they are through her research. And they're this caterpillar, that becomes a certain kind of moth. Right? Some kind of interesting moth. But the white feathers, it turns out, are where wasps land on the backs of the caterpillars and inject their larva eggs eggs into the caterpillar's guts. And then when the the eggs open, explode into larvae, the larvae eat the guts of the caterpillar and break themselves out and then fly away in their cycle. Right? Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going out from horrific story. I know. I know. It's addiction. And so I'm like, I go out to save the caterpillars, pretend pretend like I'm saving the caterpillars. So I reach towards the caterpillar to save the caterpillar, to remove the wasp. They fight like crazy. They're gnawing and chewing at me. They're snapping at me and spitting brown spit. I'm making all this up. But they they they I found out they had giant teeth. You know what I was like? Little caterpillar teeth. Yeah. Little caterpillar teeth. Yeah. But I knocked them off and I put them in a, like, a paper bag and, burned them. Because I'm leaking there. I I'm gonna kill these wasps. Good night, boys and girls. Good night. No. This is awful. I hope your children are listening to this. But I've never seen a clearer expression of what addiction does. We will fight to avoid the physiological experience of what's happened to us. I mean, it's a sickness, Stephen. I I I know we live in a society that thinks we're more powerful than we are, but this is a sickness like cancer, more akin to diabetes. You don't cause it. You're susceptible to it. You don't make it happen, but the things you do make it happen. Right? Yeah. So these caterpillars weren't saying, you know, I'm gonna eat a moon plant and have some wasp and and but then they'd have my guts eaten out. But but when I reached for them psychologically, they were defending themselves from an intruder, something that was gonna take them away from their food source, what they were doing, not realizing that their food source was inside them eating them alive already. Yeah. I mean, if you mean physiologically, they were defending themselves. Well, psychologically, they saw an intruder, so they they psychologically Keene has a metaphor now. Yeah. Keene has a metaphor now. Yeah. Keene has a metaphor. No. Yeah. Keene has a analogy. Anyone in slugs say, come join me in a geranium geranium eating meal. You know? So that's crazy. But then, also, they were they were trying to keep doing what they're created to do to find fulfillment, emotional and spiritual, quote, fulfillment, fit their place in the universe. So I know that's ridiculous, but that's addiction. It is addiction. We will fight off an intruder that is going to threaten to take away the thing that gives me illusion

of a cure or escape. Well, and what we've learned through neurochemistry and advances in your neuroscience in most in most recent years is that our our brains, we experience shame, humiliation, rejections, like shame and loneliness. Right? Fear. There's really three strong emotions. Are we begin to hunt on a non thinking level. Yeah. Right? On a brain stem level, like a pure animal level. Yeah. Lending. We begin to it's even below limbic. Yeah. We begin to hunt for relief. Yes. And so when we're in shame, when we're in loneliness, when we're in fear, especially when if we're in all three, if we've been abandoned, betrayed, abused, neglected Mhmm. We're in all three. And we find something that creates a sense of, relief. Yep. Right? Our the organ of the physiology of the brain says, oh, that's wonderful. That works. That worked. And it's because it's a animal function at that point, not a not just a human function. It's only animal function phys like, physiologically, we're just animals. Physiologically. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so we're mammals. Yeah. We're mammals. We're old mammals. And so you can the the the brain of a rat and the brain of a human from a from a addiction standpoint are very similar. If you're putting me in distress and you give me something that relieves me from distress, I'm gonna start looking for that thing, hunting for that thing in a in a way that becomes almost preoccupation. Right? Mhmm. So that in this way, like, we talk about being physiological affects the brain. It's not a thinking problem.

Like, thinking is a function of the mind, not the brain. Yes. Right? Yeah. Pre like like frontal lobe working Yeah. To executive function. Is working on even a below a limbic level. It's on a brain stem level that infects the limbic level Yeah. Which then colors how we think. Yes. Right? And and and you you you go back and you you all all everyone out there who's in recovery from addiction or in your addiction in this moment, you remember your first use. The first time, you know, you've heard kids talk the first time they saw pornography. The electric the electrodes of the brain exploded all over the place. First time a person got high, used. Mhmm. First time a person had alcohol, it did what it did. First time a codependent helps someone else feel better. It it it it it creates an ecstatic slash euphoric slash electric moment. And what's amazing is that often is is as high as you're ever gonna get. Yeah. So what's so amazing is that the addiction, it's in pursuit of that experience over and over and over again. The more you do it, the less you get it. Yeah. So you have increased tolerance. Yeah. So it's doomsday, but you can't stop it. And that's proof of addiction. Yeah. That is that is because scientific fact. Absolutely. So the smartest people in the world aren't smart enough to stop it. That's that executive function. You just tell yourself, willpower, that sheer determined biological, sheer mental determination won't stop it because willpower works on addiction like it works on diarrhea. I mean, it's it's not, So does thinking. It's exactly. It's not determined not to let my body work. And and so and it's not, ultimately, Stephen, I know that there's a great deal of harm. Immoral, sinful things happen in addiction, but it's not a moral problem. Because your morality and your perfectionism and your even your prayers to god don't stop it. So what's amazing, like, just god stop this thing. God, please stop this thing. Well, then god may be guiding you towards a solution. Yeah. But but your your own moral compunction, your determination,

your intellect doesn't stop it. Now that's proof of addiction. Well and and, like, the the neuro pathways, the neurons that are formed to the degree we've been relieved from shame and abandonment Yeah. And and brought to security Yes. The feeling of security. Yeah. The sheathing around those neurons is actually tougher. Like, if those neurons are more durable Yeah. Than other neurons. Yes. We're fixed. Right? So if if I turn to and I find that relief in love and acceptance and community and belonging and mattering Yeah. And family Yeah. Like, if if I find it there, my brain will go, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. If I find it in a bag of potato chips, right, or a line of cocaine Brain goes. Or in codependent behavior, my brain goes, yes. Yes. Yes. It it does not discriminate. And the first one

is not Slower. Is is not as good as the second one. It's not as easy. Yes. Exactly. It's and so we and the brain says it's not as good because the brain, in terms of what you're talking about physiology, is only measuring pleasure. Yeah. And it's the the adverse of pain. Yeah. It's it's the right Yeah. The relational world is is you find out you've you live euphoria by bearing life well, which means knowing what to do with all the great struggle. Let's let's talk about the psychological component of addiction. K? Yeah. For a second. So I define psychology as, like, how I make meaning in the world. Yeah. Right? So there's an emotional spiritual makeup of me is not my psychology. And by meaning, you mean to, like, how many things make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I've got to walk around with my perception. So from before I was thinking, I was experiencing. Mhmm. And I started doing, relational math and narrative like started writing stories to make sense of the world inside of me. Mhmm. And then I start only seeing the world through my own lens. Mhmm. Right? And then I develop a style of relationship, right, That reinforces

that lens. Yeah. Right? So that lens of how I interpret the world is my psychology. Yeah. And that ends up creating a thing called, if left alone onto itself without emotional attachment creates a thing called ego. Yeah. The ego that the self as I perceive me and want to be perceived. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. False self or outer self. It can be that yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're we're using the word ego like in the classic sense, not the cultural sense of like, ego being like Yeah. Like, he's egotistical. We're talking about, like, it's a Yeah. The the thing that if it's not connected to the heart, the emotions is the easing God out. It's the attempt to find my fulfillment through my performance, ultimately, the meaning making mechanism.

Mhmm. So are we make meaning based on our experiences, based on our beliefs, based on our values, and based on kind of our culture, which could be the the city, country we live. It's also the family we live in. Right? All like, we don't shape our own psychology. We're not self made. Right? We're Yeah. We're how we see and experience and know the world Yeah. Is shaped by where where we live and see and know things from. Yeah. So in a lot of ways, culture is a psychological. Yeah. Culture is psychological. Yeah. Yeah. So it can be a cult. Yeah. It's like yeah. Like the cult of addiction. Yeah. It's like yeah. But but this leads almost immediately into the emotional spiritual. Right? And and the I get frustrated sometimes, you know, in in the world of counseling and psychology around how psychology and now neuroscience, which is the new psychology. Old psychology is people more philosophical and Yeah. More more spiritual. New psychology is more medical. Right? Yeah. But none of them really account for how we're actually created as emotional and spiritual. Amen. They they think that's the primary root. Yeah. The primary root is actually we're made a

certain way. And do you even remember the big giant psychological movement with which we considered to be the the big improvement, the body mind? What was the body mind thing? Yeah. Yeah. With the Do listen. Yeah. I remember going to a conference, and and this was the, you know, the proof that, you know, prayer affects, cancer patients and did, different groups and so on. It was the beginning of the mindfulness stuff. Yeah. But the guy that was training, he's a Harvard guy, he when it came to emotion, he said garbage in, garbage out as a mind body thing. So the mind was in control and was used to negate feelings as just simply garbage, unreality. We keep humans humans psychologically keep trying to create systems. Right? Theologies, philosophies, doctrines, dogmas that can account for, like, the possibility of the human experience that's not painful. Yes. And not And to avoid powerlessness. And and avoid the sense of powerlessness. Right? Yeah. And so by being so really, you know, we taught the the way Which I would love to avoid too. Right? Yeah. So the you know, so addiction's neuro neuro it's physiological. It's psychological and that we end up being the center of our own world Yeah. Like an addiction. Right? It infects our psychology. And but it's also emotional and spiritual because it gives us a false sense of, like, euphoria or well-being, you know. Yes. That that Power control. It gives us a sense of having power in a world that we're powerless over. Yeah. It gives us a sense of having security in a world that is not necessarily secure. Right? And the solution becomes learning to feel your feelings, tell the truth, and give it over to the process. You know, if God owns the process. Right? And so the as we said at the beginning, any solution to addiction that is not robustly grounded in emotional and spiritual truth,

Right? It will always fall short. It will. Yeah. Because it's a feelings illness. Yeah. It started out as an attempt to to hide from how I'm created, feeling as a feeling creature. And the solution is to to find out what to do with feelings. Can I can I learn to have feelings? Can I learn to tolerate feelings? Can I learn to express them, identify them? Like, that's a lot of work of addiction recovery. This super smart guy, told me he said, you know, we are been we're running from two things. And I I have always say say it like this, that we're born powerless over how we're created. We're created for relationship, and without it, we're not gonna find our empowerment. Right? Mhmm. And we're also born, powerless over the world we live in. And yet we find empowerment through fellowship with in relationship. Yet both of those experiences are vulnerable, and we only have resilience through our vulnerability. But this really smart guy said this, and and I say smart guy, meaning just that he's educated, like like well, like us. Right? But he said Copernicus showed us that we're not the center of the universe, that that because the solar system and all that. And then he said And he got put in jail for it. Yes. Darwin showed us that we're a part of nature. We don't supersede nature. Freud showed us that there's a lot more going on below reason and that that which is below reason is actually in control of us Yeah. Over which we're powerless. So and I know that, you know, that in the early days, Copernicus was seen as a heretic, and Darwin, you know, I've got lots of struggles with Darwin and also how Darwin got used too in terms of for for Political agendas. Political agendas. And Freud is just simply brilliant. And I I get it. Didn't do the the whole spiritual thing so well, so as we would think of it. But Yeah. He stumbled on some truth. But these three guys introduced us to the need for addiction. I mean, if you if if you have to be the center of the universe and if you can't face that you're part of nature, which means that their their influence is over you, you've got to face and that you've got to plummet below your reason to find yourself. Like, woah. And one of the the

because you I reflect on that. The the benefits of Freud is he said we're all not that different. Like, we all he was he was pointing at something saying, we actually are all struggling with the same thing. Yeah. What America did with Freud is No religion. It got rid of Freud. Yeah. What he was saying in terms of anxiety. Freud got rid of Freud. With Freud with anxiety and and and tremendous, you know, we're off topic here, but emotions Well, I think we're on topic in that. This thing of addiction has been around for a long, long time. Yes. And it And if you can't do powerlessness Yeah. Which really means facing how you're made as a creature in need of relationship to be empowered or strong. Of a world you're not in control of. Yep. So let me read this last this paragraph from the book and we'll end the podcast here after after you respond to it.

Because you know No. I think you need to respond to it. Yeah. So God created us to live fully in relationship. Full life cannot be found without God fully in it. We are ashamed of our sensitivity and have contempt for our vulnerability, becoming open again to how we are created and becoming willing to reach toward the connection we are made to have with ourselves, with others, and with God will render us open to the life we're created to live and to the possibility that our understanding of God is controlled by our past experiences rather than by the true nature of God, which is love. Amen. And you said it earlier. How? How? How? Well, honest, open, willing defeats e g o, easing god out, that the true self is greater than the the self we manufacture. And by being honest, open, and willing, which you said earlier means feel your feelings, and we're talking about The Voice of the Heart, the eight feelings. Tell the truth about what's happening within you, it actually lowers cortisol. Right? It actually it actually stops heart disease. That's right. Yeah. And give it to the process, and God owns the process. Give it to the process of how life works. And, Stephen, as as we close, what that does is create the order we're created to live in. The heart is gratified, which the neuroscience scientist called social contentment, like I'm joined. The brain is engaged in what it's made to be engaged in, which is expressing the heart. The soul is contented in terms of the direction it's of of where it's going, and the body is directed. The heart's in charge. And the brain is engaged. And those three things follow the heart versus the body lusts because it won't address the heart's cravings. The brain hunts for material to put into the body so that it won't have to have pain. The soul wanders and the heart is just satiated. It's just shut down, shut up, fed cotton candy to make it numb. So, I mean, literally, to address ourselves as emotional and spiritual creatures is to is to order our lives as we're created to live. The heart gratified, the brain engaged, the soul contented, and and the body directed, Meaning, we're in the struggle. It doesn't escape the struggle. You're not gonna be a stoic staying on top of a mountain. You're gonna be a human fully engaged And living life. And living life. In all of it. Yes. Living fully, loving deeply, and leading well. Thanks, Chip. Thank you, Stephen.

This podcast is brought to you by Sage Hill, a social impact organization. Our mission is to help people be who they're made to be so that they can do what they're made to do. Find more resources to live fully, love deeply, and lead well at sagehillresources.com.