The Toothache – Pain of the Problem and the Pain of the Solution

Over the past several months I have been plagued with a constant toothache. I finally took myself kicking and screaming to the dentist. He discovered I had a crack in my back upper right molar. The dentist glued the tooth together by filling in the crack with some kind of cement. He said we’d have to give the tooth some time before putting on a crown to see if the root of the tooth had been damaged. The pain went away for a little while. I was very grateful. No one likes the prognosis “root canal.” This was a procedure I surely hoped to avoid! Maybe the problem could just be patched over and covered up with a crown.

I was instructed to use extreme care and completely avoid using that quadrant of my mouth, so I chewed all my food on the left side, even being careful with soft foods and liquids. Within a few weeks the pain returned. With fear and trepidation I went back to the dentist. He placed a temporary crown on the tooth, took impressions for a permanent crown and sent me home with an antibiotic and instructions to follow in case I began to experience extreme pain. “What’s this all about?” I thought.

Apparently the dentist knew more about the future than I did. Within a very few hours I was in excruciating pain. Apparently all the fuss over my tooth had awakened a sleeping giant. The only pain I can even compare it to is labor and childbirth. Still I resisted. I was in the middle of a very busy week. So much to do, and I still hung to the hope that somehow miraculously the pain might simply go away without any more expense and inconvenience. After 48 hours of agony I called the specialist. Suddenly no amount of money was too great and no procedure too uncomfortable if only this pain could be taken away.

By the time I actually found myself in the chair of the endodontist, mouth open, staring humbly into the bright overhead light, much of the pain had subsided. I braced myself as he moved toward my pitiful tooth with his icy probe checking each tooth for sensitivity.

“That’s the one,” he said. “You definitely need a root canal.”

With tears leaking out of my eyes and toward my ears I expressed my terror at the thought of further suffering.

“Actually,” he said, “The greatest part of the pain occurred before you came to me for help.” He explained that infection had settled in and destroyed the nerve of my tooth. The pain I had experienced was actually the pain of the nerve dying. According to the doctor, the root canal, the stabilizing of the tooth and getting rid of any infection was going to be far less painful than what I had already gone through. I chose to believe him. I was out of alternatives, and he was right. The procedure I had fearfully procrastinated for months was not what I had imagined and the outcome was RELIEF!

In 12 Step recovery there’s a saying that goes: “People come for help when the pain of the problem is worse than the pain of the solution.” Many of us (and I include myself in this diagnosis) are initially overcome with fear as we read the 12 Steps of Recovery. I remember thinking, “Well, I’ll take the first three steps and the last three, but I’m not taking any of those steps in the middle.” I’m sure my response is not unique. We imagine that taking the steps will be very painful. But, when the pain of living in the insanity of our problem becomes worse than the imagined pain of seeking a mighty, divinely implemented change in our lives, we find the humility to seek help and surrender to a process that is tried and true. We become as willing “as the dying can be,” it says in AA literature (AA Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, page 24).

That day in the dentist chair the endodontist spoke words that calmed my heart. “Actually, the greatest part of the pain occurred before you came to me for help.” Those words caused me to relax and surrender to the work that had to be done that day. Today I want to share those same words with any of you who are avoiding recovery because you’re terrified of the pain of taking each of the steps. The application of the 12 Steps, though daunting at first, is actually much less painful than we fear or than the pain we have experienced in the throes of our problem. The greatest pain is experienced before we give up and surrender to our need for help.

Through these steps, like young Alma, we can experience relief we never imagined possible. In the Book of Mormon, Alma the Younger describes what happened to him when he was finally humble enough to cry out to the Lord. “Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death. And now, behold, when I thought this, I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more. And oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!” (Alma 36:18-20).

Root canal or recovery–when we surrender to the process, it brings an end to an exhausting pain-filled journey. I don’t know the etymology of the word “endodontist,” but I notice that the first syllable is the little word “end.” Part of the job description of that specialist is to bring an end to dental misery. It’s curious that the Lord calls himself “The Beginning and The End.” Do not be afraid of these 12 simple gospel principles. There is One who has paid the price to specialize in any and all hurts you have experienced in this life. Through Him we can each experience “The End” of pain brought on by the infection of our sins, the sins of others, or the trials and afflictions of earth life and “The Beginning” of a joyful new way of living.

By Nannette W.
Posted Tuesday, June 15, 2010

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