More Step Work, Dammit

So I'm back at the dentist yesterday for a cleaning.  The last time I was in The Chair I had a bit of an emergency: a broken tooth.  The dentist did a stellar job fixing the problem while also spending a little of his free time looking around inside my almost 56 year old mouth for any other things that might catch his attention.  Not surprisingly, he found some!  At the top of his list were three additional teeth that needed to have crowns put on them.  Now I'm not doubting that I have some teeth that aren't in tip-top shape and I would much rather have a dentist finding a few optional problems than one missing something important, but I'm not having any symptoms and I don't have dental insurance and these procedures are #$!! expensive.

I fretted some at the time but didn't do any of the additional work, with no dire consequences.  After I had my teeth cleaned yesterday the dentist did an oral exam; he noted the same three teeth - which apparently weren't too much of a problem a year ago or they would have let me hear about it before now -  and also a shitload of other things.  He got up and told me the office manager would print out a suggested treatment plan.

It topped out at just over $12,000.

I was pretty upset on the way home.  If you want to upset me screw around with my health; money is a nice trigger as well.  And  it's not like we're talking about my car or plumbing - I may need a tune-up but I don't have any problem delaying that.  But my mouth.  I envision teeth cracking off at 3AM accompanied by a drumbeat of horrible pain.  And when I'm afraid I get pissed.  Guys get mad when they're afraid; it's a lot more manly than being a-scaired.

I wanted to call the dentist and give him a piece of my mind.  But I remembered something that vaguely sounded like "restraint of tongue and pen."  And tongue and tongue and tongue.  And tongue.  I may have read that in a book somewhere.  It may have saved my ass about a million times.

I didn't make the call.

I went to a meeting last night and chaired, selecting restraint of tongue and pen as the topic.  I didn't provide specifics about why I needed to be restrained, only that it involved someone trying to take some of my money away, trying to cheat me, to take advantage of me, to pull the wool over my eyes.  I heard good things.

I got up this morning and during my Quiet Time I sat quietly with my discomfort.  I want to act but knew that I needed to sit quietly.  Drunks don't like pain so we try to make it go away with drugs, alcohol, coffee, food, sex, work, exercise, anything but feeling the pain.  It was OK sitting with the pain.  Emotional pain is nothing but a feeling.   Feelings aren't real and they aren't going to kill me.  We don't ignore feelings in The Fellowship but we don't give them any unnecessary power, either.  My first sponsor was fond of saying: "I don't give a shit about your feelings; tell me what you're DOING."

I swam this morning - always a good stress reliever - and then called my Old City sponsor, a man who is roughly as paranoid about money as I am.  I knew I was going to be preaching to the choir but also that talking about my anger . . . er, fear . . . with another person would weaken said fear.  It helped even though mostly he laughed at me.  Prosperity problems or something like that.

Now I'm writing about it.  I've made my opinions known recently about the ferocious power of putting pen to paper.  This is really helping, too.

But I have to call the dentist.  I have to make a decision.  I don't want to do it.  I'm afraid that I'm going to hear something that I don't want to hear.

But I'm not angry.  I'm calm.  I'm thinking clearly.  I believe this is what's called Working The Steps: using the principles of The Fellowship to practical effect in my life.  Reading, writing, talking about things at meetings and on the phone, prayer and meditation.  This is why I work The Steps.  These are practical, tangible results.  This isn't theoretical stuff.