A three-word phrase that he didn’t understand—until he spent some quality time in the program
There are very few original thoughts in the rooms of AA, but this may be one.
It was a cold November morning years ago now that I walked through the door of Dawn Patrol in Albuquerque. I wanted to be there, but didn’t want to be there. I found the closest chair to the door and tried to be invisible.
You couldn’t miss Biker Steve. He was a strapping man of Hispanic descent who appeared to have been poured into his Levis and his white t-shirt seemed painted on. His exposed arms were covered with tattoos and were works of art. To me, he was a scary dude.
I never knew the story behind his name, but Biker had been in the program a long time and when he shared it was punctuated by what we all referred to as Bikerisms—AA wisdom which oozed out of him like a well-rehearsed politician’s stump speech.
But there was one Bikerism that immediately caught my attention because I didn’t know what he meant – Feel, Deal, Heal. Those three words rolled out of his mouth and they didn’t make sense to me at all, but I was dammed if I was going to ask him!
Biker is gone now; he died sober. It was not until after Biker had died and I was doing a meeting at the prison south of Albuquerque that I figured out what Biker meant by Feel, Deal, Heal/
One of the inmates was sharing about how he had killed someone driving drunk and said, “I am finally letting myself feel what I did. I took another person’s life.” He went on to say, “I am dealing with it” and I finished the inmate’s sentence, “and I am getting better.”
For years I tried to figure out why I was an alcoholic and finally gave up. It wasn’t important; I just was. But that evening at the prison, Biker was talking to me—and, as you know, there are no coincidences—and I realized that one reason I drank was that I didn’t want to feel those fears and resentments. I drank to try and cover them up, but it doesn’t work. You have to feel what scares you and then deal with it best you can and then, and only then, can you begin to heal.
Below are three other articles that deal with this important topic of the dangers of ‘experience avoidance’ and a solution like that outlined in the above Grapevine article. I hope you’ll check these articles out if you found ‘feel, deal, heal’ helpful.
Experiential avoidance (EA) has been broadly defined as attempts to avoid thoughts, feelings, memories, physical sensations, and other internal experiences – even when doing so creates harm in the long run. It is not negative thoughts, emotions, and sensations that are problematic, but how one responds to them that can cause difficulties. The ancient Stoic philosopher Epictetus in the 2nd century described this realization as ‘we are not disturbed by things, but by the view which we take of them’. I’ve also added this article to the website sections of emotional sobriety , toxic shame and healing our Jekyll/Hyde divided self – Bruce M.
Accepting The Hardship Of Anxiety As The Pathway To Peace
What We Resist Persists; Acceptance And Willingness
Reclaiming the Self: 12-Steps, a Higher Power, and Inner Healing