Sink or Swim

Summary

Podcast Summary: RISK! Episode - "Sink or Swim"

Episode Details

• Title: Sink or Swim
• Release Date: August 12, 2025
• Host: Kevin Allison

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Introduction and Theme

In this episode of RISK!, titled "Sink or Swim," host Kevin Allison delves into the profound themes of seeking help and ensuring safety in perilous times. The episode emphasizes personal stories that reveal vulnerabilities, the importance of community support, and the transformative power of sharing one's experiences.

Notable Quote:

Kevin Allison [02:56]: "Risk is the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share."

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Valerie Ward: "Treading Water"

Valerie Ward shares a deeply personal childhood experience that metaphorically mirrors her emotional struggles. At seven years old, Valerie found herself physically and emotionally trapped beneath a dock at her grandparents' lake house in Burnett, Texas. This incident symbolizes her feelings of isolation and the absence of supportive familial relationships during a tumultuous period marked by her parents' impending divorce and emotional neglect.

Key Points:

• Family Dynamics: Valerie describes a family environment where her father was stern and appearance-focused, leading to emotional distance. Her mother's emotional absence further compounded the lack of familial support.

• The Incident: During a family vacation, Valerie, eager to swim, jumps into the lake without a life jacket. Unlike a pool, the lake offers no visible bottom, causing her to panic and drown beneath the dock amid metal cages.

• Emotional Underpinnings: The physical entrapment reflects Valerie's internal feelings of being unsupported and her reluctance to seek help due to past familial neglect.

• Transformation Through Storytelling: Sharing this story at a storytelling workshop unveiled Valerie's long-suppressed need for support. The positive reactions from strangers helped her realize that seeking help is acceptable and that people do care.

Notable Quotes:

Valerie Ward [00:05]: "When I started telling that story out loud to strangers and I saw that they cared about me and they were worried about me... that really made me rethink what this story has to tell me."

Valerie Ward [08:42]: "I didn't feel like I was allowed to ask for help. So I just figured it out on my own."

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Poem: "Not Waving but Drowning" by Stevie Smith

Glenda Jackson delivers a poignant rendition of Stevie Smith's classic poem, "Not Waving but Drowning." The poem encapsulates the theme of misinterpreted cries for help and the invisible struggles individuals may face, resonating deeply with the episode's overarching message.

Notable Quote:

Glenda Jackson [16:16]: "I was much further out than you thought. And not waving, but drowning."

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David Pattison: "Rescuer"

David Pattison recounts a harrowing experience from his childhood that highlights themes of family dysfunction, resilience, and the unexpected sources of support. At 11 years old, David faces a life-threatening situation while swimming, exacerbated by his strained relationship with his family.

Key Points:

• Challenging Family Environment: David grows up in a household marked by his parents' divorce, financial struggles, and emotional neglect. His older brother Mike transitions from a disciplinarian to a compassionate protector following their mother's death.

• The Near-Drowning Incident: While enjoying the ocean, David gets caught in an undertow and battles exhaustion and panic. Isolated and feeling disconnected from his family, he finds strength when his brother Mike appears to rescue him.

• Brotherly Bond: Mike's presence and support during the crisis illustrate the profound impact of sibling relationships in overcoming hardship. This experience reinforces David's appreciation for Mike's role in his life.

• Long-Term Impact: The incident serves as a pivotal moment for David, fostering a deep sense of gratitude and questioning how different his life might have been without his brother's intervention.

Notable Quotes:

David Pattison [22:24]: "I hated my family. I hated the fact they didn't know that I'm out here, middle of the ocean, about to die."

David Pattison [31:30]: "I wondered, where would I be today if it wasn't for Mike? Would I have dropped out of school? Would I be a loner somewhere crippled with shyness? Or would I be dead?"

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Host Reflections and Announcements

Kevin Allison reflects on his own journey with the podcast, sharing a personal check-in that touches upon his feelings of being overwhelmed by the current political climate and his plans to move to Thailand. He emphasizes the therapeutic value of storytelling, both for himself and his audience, and announces upcoming events and workshops.

Key Points:

• Personal Check-In: Kevin discusses his emotional state amidst a new presidential administration and his decision to maintain a hopeful yet authentic narrative in his storytelling.

• Upcoming Move: Plans to relocate to Thailand in approximately 50 days, with intentions to continue offering online storytelling workshops from abroad, adapting to time differences and student feedback.

• Community Engagement: Encourages listeners to participate in upcoming storytelling events, both online and in-person, including a live show in New York City on September 25th featuring host JC Cassis.

• Support for the Podcast: Kevin highlights the importance of listener support through Patreon, offering benefits such as ad-free episodes, bonus content, and exclusive access to personal projects.

Notable Quotes:

Kevin Allison [02:56]: "I wanted to speak authentically... I want to do an in a careful reassessment of how to improve [the workshops]."

Kevin Allison [32:34]: "Risk really needs the support of our listeners to keep on keeping on."

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Conclusion

The "Sink or Swim" episode of RISK! masterfully intertwines deeply personal narratives with broader reflections on seeking help and building support systems. Valerie Ward and David Pattison's stories exemplify the courage it takes to share intimate experiences and the profound impact such sharing can have on both the storyteller and the audience. Through these narratives, alongside Kevin Allison's heartfelt commentary, the episode reinforces the essential human need for connection, understanding, and mutual support in navigating life's challenges.

Final Note: The episode concludes with Valerie Ward reiterating the central theme:

Valerie Ward [34:39]: "Time to sink or swim. Sink or swim."

This powerful endorsement encapsulates the episode's message: facing life's struggles is inevitable, but with support and courage, one can overcome even the most daunting challenges.

Transcript

[Kevin Allison]

Hey, folks, this is Kevin. On this week's episode of Risk, you'll hear Valerie Ward.

[Valerie Ward]

I was at a storytelling workshop, the what's yous Story Workshop for the Risk podcast. And when I started telling that story out loud to strangers and I saw that they cared about me and they were worried about me and they just, they just met me and I'm there, I'm okay. But that they cared, that really made me rethink what this story has to tell me.

[Kevin Allison]

Yep, I'm familiar with that whole thing. But first, folks, we have a little ways off, but they're coming. Two big holidays. There's Halloween and then there's, well, many holidays. The winter holidays, Christmas, Hanukkah, New Year's, Kwanzaa, et cetera, et cetera. So pitch us your scary stories or your fun winter holidays kinds of stories. We need them at risk-show.com submissions.

[Unknown]

We'll be right back.

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[Sam]

Sam.

[Kevin Allison]

Hello folks, this is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison, and this is the undercover dream lovers behind me now. And we're calling this week's episode Sink or Swim, an episode about calling for help and keeping each other safe when the world gets dangerous. Folks, I did a check in for the first time in many months that I posted on Patreon on July 28th. Now it's free even for non Patreon members to listen to there. I had been avoiding doing a check in for a long time because I've been pretty overwhelmed about this first six months of this new presidential administration. And I wanted to be really careful to keep the check in hopeful, as hopeful as I could, and offer us all moral support. But I also wanted to be real. You know, I, I didn't want to sugarcoat things. I wanted to speak authentically about, you know, I wanted to be real. I wanted to be raw and real, which is the whole point of this thing we've got here, this entire podcast. I also wanted to talk about my hopes and dreams, my best intentions about this huge leap I'm taking in about 50 days with my move to Thailand. So again, the check in is free for all to [e-mail] risk even if you're not a Patreon member, you can hear me speaking straight to the heart, doing my best to be as authentic as I can with you about what has been a brutal year so far. But it's also, I will tell you one thing, it has been a year when I am valuing storytelling in the creation of this podcast, in our what's yous Story social events, and in these workshops I'm leading online. I've been valuing it all so much more than ever before. I never thought that 16 years into this, I would arrive at a place of so dearly loving and so deeply believing in it on another level. It's astounding to me. I'll tell you, the workshops have been, they've been so beautiful and quite frankly, they've been like therapy for, for me. I've decided that I will indeed keep teaching online storytelling workshops once I'm in Bangkok. These ones, of course, were partly to raise money for my being able to make this move. But now, you know, they just seem so essential to me. So I want to do a careful reassessment of how to improve them. I want to tweak them once I move. I'm paying close attention to students feedback and yes, the time difference will make it so that I'll only be able to offer them in what for people in the US will be early in the morning or somewhat later in the evening. But I'll experiment. I'll figure all that out. And this particular episode will be dropping. And yes, I said dropping on August 12th. And so the final workshop I'm offering this summer before the move starts on August 17th. So email me at kevinrisktshow.com to learn more about that. Now in a little bit we're going to hear from David Pattison, but before that, a story from Valerie Ward. Now in our Curated socials that we call what's yous Story. Either myself or another RISS staff member leads a room full of people or a zoom grid full of people through little ice breaking activities where everyone tells very short stories, usually mostly on the lighter side and mostly in pairs or small groups. But then at the end we often have a few volunteers share something they told earlier in the social to the entire room or through the entire zoom grid. And I think it was last summer that Valerie Ward, who we'd never met before, told this story out of what's yous Story in Brooklyn. So we asked her to flesh it out a bit and workshop it with us so she could do it at a risk. Live show in New York, which is what you're about to hear. Here is Valerie Ward now with a story we call Treading Water.

[Valerie Ward]

So when I was young my family would often go to my grandparents lake house. They had a lake house out in Burnett, Texas that my grandfather had built and it was kind of their vacation house. And so there was one summer where my family went. It was me, I was about seven years old, my two little brothers who were twins, they were about four and a half and my mom and my dad and my grandparents. And so we drive out to the lake house and we get there and it's one of those two stories. You go in on the top story and then you go down. So we all got into our swimsuits so excited. I loved water when I was a kid. I loved swimming, I loved being in the pools. I was just so excited to go and jump in the lake. I think this was the first time I had actually been to the lake house. And I remember like a long kind of pathway out to this U shaped dock. And I remember like just running down the dock and feeling it kind of bounce under me. My family was all over kind of on the left side of the dock and then there was the boat and then I was over on the right side and I was just so ready to jump in and I didn't even have a life jacket on or anything and I just jumped into the lake. And if you've ever like, I was used to going to pools. So when you jump into a pool you go down, you hit the bottom, you kind of bounce yourself back up and then you're on the surface again. But when you jump into a lake, there's basically no bottom that you hit. So I just went down. And then I was instantly so disoriented, like, wait, where's the bottom? Why aren't I going up. Which way is up? Oh, no, where am I? And I finally kind of got myself back into, like, okay, wait, this way is up. If I just keep kind of clawing my way up, I'll get up to the surface. And I got back up to the surface, and I was breathing air again, and I was so relieved. And then I looked around, and I realized I was not in the open water. I was underneath the dock. And so it was like, kind of the water is up to my neck. There's maybe a foot or two of air above me before those, like, the wood of the dock. And then all around, around is this metal cage that's floating in the water, and it goes down a few feet. And so I feel this, like, panicky, trapped feeling. Okay, I need to get out. And so I try diving down, but every time I come back up, because I'm so disoriented under the water and panicking, I'm still under the dock. And I keep trying to dive down and come back up, and I can't get up. And I'm just so worried, and I feel myself getting tired, and I think, oh, no, am I going to drown here? And you might be wondering at this point, why doesn't she just call for help? Her family is right there. So I should probably tell you a little bit more about my family at this point. This was about one year before my parents would get divorced. My dad would remarry within a year after the divorce, and his new wife would come with two daughters, one of whom would basically replace me. And he was very stern. Everything he really cared about, appearances. He wanted everything to look right to other people. And if we ever made a mistake, he would, you know, admonish us. He would, you know, deprive us of things that we enjoyed. It was just like, you don't make mistakes. With my dad, it just was not okay. And I didn't ever really have much of a relationship with him. He was a doctor. He was always at work. And after my parents got divorced, I just kept seeing him less and less and less. My mom was also pretty emotionally absent, but she was physically present. But she just kind of never reacted to anything. Never really took an interest in parenting me. Never really did much of anything to take care of me or her. After my parents were divorced, I remember just there were some times where she didn't have a job, and we couldn't pay the electric bill, and we didn't have any groceries, and so we had cornmeal mush for dinner by Candlelight because that's all there was. And so she just like did not have a survival instinct for me or for her. Just like barely getting by was plenty for her. And so I was there. And it just didn't occur to me, trapped under this dock, seven years old, trying to stay afloat. It just didn't occur to me that I could ask for help. I wanted someone to notice and help me, but I didn't feel like I was allowed to ask for help. So I just figured it out on my own. I kept diving down and eventually one of those times I came back up and I was out on the open lake. I could see the sky above me and I felt such a relief. And I made my way back over to the ladder of the dock and I climbed back up on the dock and I could remember feeling like those weathered soft boards under my. Under my body and like the warmth of the sun soaking them in. And I didn't cry. I didn't even tell anyone what had happened. I didn't get any comfort except for just the comfort of being there on a semi solid land. And I always took a lesson away from this story. I always told myself the lesson of this story was I should not take risks. That when I take risks, it gets me into trouble. And that's always kind of the way I moved through life. I've always had a hard time trusting people because I just never believed anyone would be there or care or want to help me. But I had never told this story out loud to anyone until I was at a storytelling workshop, the what's yous Story? Workshop for the Risk podcast. And when I started telling that story out loud to strangers and I saw that they cared about me and they were worried about me and they just. They just met me and I'm there, I'm okay. But that they cared, that really made me rethink what this story has to tell me. And I think now the lesson of that story is that people do care for me. And I needed help back then. I needed someone to help me and I needed someone to care about me. And everybody needs that. And the people that I have in my life now are not my family. They're people who choose to know me. And it's okay for me to reach out to them and ask them for help and ask for their support and to trust that they'll be there when I need them.

[Glenda Jackson]

Nobody heard him, the dead man. But still he lay moaning. I was much further out than you thought. And not waving, but drowning. Poor chapter. He always loved larking and now he's dead. It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way they said, oh no, no, no, it was too cold Always still the dead one lay moaning I was much too far out all my life and not waving but drowning.

[Unknown]

We'll be right back.

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We're back.

[Sam]

That's a pretty big trunk on my licking town car, ain't it? Big enough to take these broken hearts and put them in there.

[Unknown]

Now I'm.

[Sam]

Driving around on the boulevard trunk bleeding and every time the cops pull me over they don't never see them, they never see them and I got this black suit on Roaming around like I'm ready for a funeral Roll.

[Unknown]

Five more.

[Sam]

Miles till the road runs out Fumbled by the driving the ocean I'mma try to swim from something bigger than me Kick off my shoes it's one good, it's one good Take off this suit it's one good it's one good.

[Kevin Allison]

This is Risk. This is Frank Ocean behind me now. And we just heard Not Waving But Drowning by Stevie Smith, read by Glenda Jackson. It's been a while since we've had a poem on the show. By the time I was in high school in the 80s, that one was kind of a staple in English lit textbooks. But it kinda hits differently nowadays. Before that we heard from Valerie Ward you can find on Instagram at valetoile. Let me spell that. That's Vale T O I L E. I don't know how to pronounce that. Folks, the best way to learn about about when we'll do our next what's yous Story? Curated social event. We want to do one online soon so that anyone can jump in from anywhere. And then I want to do an in person one in Bangkok in the fall too. The best way to find out about it is to join our email newsletter. We send that out about twice a month at the most and it just gives a quick breakdown of what all we're doing. If you go to risk-show.com, look for the yellow box in the upper right hand corner that says get the Risk newsletter. You plug your email address into it and you'll never miss out on what's up folks? There will be a Risk Live show in New York City at caveat on September 25th. Not only will the podcast keep on keeping on while I'm in Thailand, so will our New York live show. And on September 25th, JC Cassis will be hosting the show that night. You know JC is my partner in running this whole operation. You might not have known. She's a performer also. Music, comedy, dance, the whole enchilada. She's been hosting this fabulous dance and burlesque show downtown lately called Electric Moon Cabaret and it's a big old hit. So she's good and warmed up to host the next Risk Live show in New York too. So get your tickets for September 25th at risk-show.com live. Next, we're going to hear from David Pattison. Here is David now with a story we call Rescuer.

[Sam]

I Wish I swim for.

[Unknown]

I'm 11 years old and I'm on a sand bar in Virginia beach so that where I'm at, the water only comes up to my knees. But from me to the shore, you know, the water's deep. I'm going out into the ocean, catching waves and riding them in. I'm 11 years old. I'm having a great time. I go out, catch a wave and ride it in. Suddenly there's no sandbar. It's just empty ocean. I feel a undertow and it's starting to pull me out towards the ocean. So I start swimming, say I'm a pretty good swimmer. I start swimming and after swimming for a while, I look up. Shore is no closer, so I swim harder. I start to panic a little bit. I'm swimming harder and every time I look up, the shore's not getting any closer. I'm really starting to panic at this point and finally I get so tired that I have to roll onto my back and float. And while I'm floating there, being pushed further out to sea, I think about my family. I hate them. I hate the Fact, they don't know that I'm out here, middle of the ocean, about to die. My little brother Pete's probably on shore bugging my dad for snack money. My older brother Mike is probably getting into some kind of mischief somewhere. My two sisters probably on the boardwalk looking for boys. And my mom down in Florida, probably the life of some hippie party. Now we were a happy family. I mean, at one time we were. At least mom used to play tag with us all the time. And she would catch us, me, my little brother Pete, and hold us in this huge hug. And we would be squirming to try to get free and screaming and stuff. She took us to D.C. and she would laugh and scream when she saw us on the carousel going around. And, you know, those are good memories. Now it was the 60s, and it was Martin Luther King in Vietnam, and Kennedy. And King was assassinated. Kennedy was assassinated. And a lot of turmoil and hippies. And mom was very much into the whole hippie scene. And my older sisters were teenagers, too, so they all kind of bonded on that. But things changed. Mom and dad started arguing a lot. And I'd overhear things like drugs and credit cards. And there were times when mom wouldn't be at home, she wouldn't cook dinner, and dad would have to take us out. And then one day she was just gone. No goodbye, nothing. There's kind of a void in the house. After she left, my dad, he had to take another job. So he had three jobs to pay the bills, so he was never home. We had no supervision. My two older sisters, well, they spent all their time in the bathroom or hogging the telephone. There was my younger brother, Pete. And whenever we were around each other, we were fighting. Then there was my brother Mike. Now, Mike took on the mother role. He tried to fill the void, but he was more the disciplinarian. Like, I remember once I didn't do the dishes after dinner or some stupid thing, and he made me eat salt as punishment. Yeah, he was creative. And it was punishments. He was about 13 or 14 at this time, and I'm 11. He felt it was his duty to man us up. So he had these contests, like push the family car where we push it up and down the driveway to see how strong we were. And he would chase us, like, run from the murderer. And he was the murderer and we were the victims. He always had to win, too. He's a win win kind of brother. So, like, one time I beat him in ping pong, and he picks up a wine bottle and Hurls it straight up my head. Now, if I hadn't ducked, I'd still be trying to learn the Alphabet. But he wasn't all bad. The weird thing is that there were some really cool things about him. Like, he would cook for us on nights that dad was working. And he'd take us to movies and even pay for our wedding. There's the time he stood up to a bully. This bully threw a rock at me and knocked me off my bicycle. He was kind of like our protector. He was our guardian, only he could fuck with us. So, anyway, I'm there in the ocean, hating my family. I'm floating on my back. And the problem with floating on your back in the ocean is the waves will lap over your face and you'll start choking. So I'd roll over on my stomach and. Do they call it a corpse pose? It's kind of like your face down in the water, and then you lift your head up when you want to inhale and exhale in the water. The problem with that is, what the hell is in the water? Jaws had come out. My imagination was like, there's sharks down there. I thought, okay, this is it. I'm dead. And I come up the water, and I see Mike. Hallelujah. If anybody can save me, it's Mike. He's a strong swimmer, and it gives me this renewed strength. So we both start swimming back to shore. But the current is still strong. And I notice that Mike is not having any more luck than I am. At least I'm not alone, right? We're struggling and not getting closer. And then at one point, I looked at Mike and I saw fear in his eyes. My stomach dropped. But then I looked at him again, and he pointed to the side. So he started swimming parallel to the shore. And after a little bit, all of a sudden, the current got weaker and weaker and it was no longer there. And then we're out of the current, and we swim a little bit. And then also, I look up, and Mike is on a sandbar standing up. And so I stand up, too. We high five and we swim to shore. And then once on shore, Mike just walks away like it was nothing. It's like, no big deal. The following year, our mom died, Probably a drug overdose. And if I was withdrawn before, I was ten times more withdrawn. I come home from school and I just go straight to the tv. I didn't talk to kids at school. I'm in elementary school. I dreaded recess because I didn't want to socialize. I didn't want to play. I was really depressed, and Mike noticed that. So where he was disciplinarian before, he suddenly became compassionate. And he would do things like he would make me turn off the TV and lift weights with him. You know, he'd make me go outside. He was driving at this point. He would take me driving out to Dulles Airport, and we'd roll the windows down. It'd be wintertime. We would roll the windows down and just scream into the wind, just for fun. I think part of it was because I wasn't talking either, and so he was trying to get me to talk and get out of myself. He would ask me questions like, you know, what's going on? You know, why are you so quiet? You know, you need to speak more. You need to speak up, you know, practice talking. And he really worked with me over the years. We've both kind of succeeded in life. We're very similar. I have a house in the suburbs. I have a family, a successful job. He's got a house in the suburbs, a successful job. And we kind of made our way in the world despite the hardships. And I wondered, where would I be today if it wasn't for Mike? Would I have dropped out of school? Would I be a loner somewhere crippled with shyness? Or would I be dead? He was our mother, and like a good mom, he kept an eye out for us, whether we wanted him to or not.

This summer I went swimming this summer I might have drowned But I held my breath and a kick of my feet and a moving my arms around Move my arms around this summer I swam in the ocean and I swam in a swimming pool Salt my wounds Purine my eyes I'm a self destructive fool I'm a self destructive fool.

This.

Summer I did the backstroke and you know that that's not all. I did the breaststroke and the butterfly and the old Australian crawl the old Australian crawl. This summer I swam in a public place in a reservoir to boot. At the ladder, I was informal. At the former, I wore my suit. I want my swimming suit.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, this is Risk. This is Loudon Wainwright III behind me now. And we just heard from David Pattison. More of David's stories can be [e-mail] or you can find him on Instagram at David Patterson. Folks, Risk really needs the support of our listeners to keep on keeping on. And the best way to do that is to go to patreon.com risk and become a member, or if you already are a member, to increase the amount that you're donating. You can get the ad free feed of the show there. You can get tons of bonus stories. You can get my storytelling for business video course. My latest check in is over there. There's always lots going [e-mail] risk or if you want to make a one time donation, that's at paypal me riskshow next week's conversation story will be with with our dear friend John F. O', Donnell, the one and only J. Fod, also one of our favorite comedians. And this story's going to be about the time John got kicked out of his favorite comedy club. But that's next week. And meanwhile, folks, today is the day. Take a Sink or swim or sink or swim of course sink or swim or sink or swim or sink or swim.

[Valerie Ward]

Time to sink or swim course Sink or swim. Sink, sink, sink, sink or swim.

[Unknown]

Swim, swim, sink or sink or sink or swim.

Swim, sink or swim.

[Valerie Ward]

Swim, sink or swim.

[Glenda Jackson]

I know not how I'll sink or swim.

[Valerie Ward]

It was sink or swim and there were a lot of drownings.