God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. Courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. TWELVE STEPS AND TWELVE TRADITIONS, p. 125
The power of this prayer is overwhelming in that its simple beauty parallels the A.A. Fellowship. There are times when I get stuck while reciting it, but if I examine the section which is troubling me, I find the answer to my problem. The first time this happened I was scared, but now I use it as a valuable tool. By accepting life as it is, I gain serenity. By taking action, I gain courage and I thank God for the ability to distinguish between those situations I can work on, and those I must turn over. All that I have now is a gift from God: my life, my usefulness, my contentment, and this program. The serenity enables me to continue walking forward. Alcoholics Anonymous is the easier, softer way.
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Some days are tougher than others and this prayer helps to get me through the rough patches, if I allow God to do His thing by helping me accept, granting me courage, or granting me wisdom. It helps me to see my troubles more clearly.
Do you buck? Bronco.
I have incorporated the wisdom in this prayer into my life code. It is a guiding principle and my life is extraordinarily simplified by it.
Before doing this I was inclined to “play God” even though I didn’t have any idea what I was doing. I just knew I was trying to right every perceived wrong that I came across and my judgment was so impaired by my egocentricity that I was quite often acting with foolishness.
So a great freedom was delivered when wisdom stepped in and advised me that a lot of things I was concerned with just simply wasn’t my business. Another thing that helped was what someone said about our sister program Alanon; they said it can be summed up with three words; “Mind your own business”. I think that’s great!
My life’s vocation was the practice of medicine and although I almost lost it due to my willfully continued process of alcoholism, I was able to resume a successful practice after an acceptable period of rehabilitation.
I saw many people with all kinds of life problems and a tool that I found terrifically helpful was to hang the serenity prayer on the wall of my consultation and examination rooms. They all read this powerful and magnificent prayer and we quickly started sharing about how it could be used in addressing problems. This was a gift of this recovery program to them that many of them would never have gotten otherwise.
This helped to embed the principles of this prayer into my life code.
We exist and we grow in community.
I’m Harry, a wiser person due to Alcoholics Anonymous.
The courage to change the things I can… In early sobriety I interpreted this as speaking truth to power and changing things around me. This fed my anarchist side.
How much more courage it takes to hold up the mirror in step 4 look at myself and work steps with a sponsor’s guidance to change “things” going on inside me.
What a beautiful morning! I’m glad this is online. This is the first place I check. It was suggested to me that prayer comes first. What AA has given me is not only my sobriety but my also a relationship I never had with the God of my understanding. I’d always hear about people who had a relastionship with God and I never understood. How is that posible? Well, I have friends and family and I have relationships with them through love, trust, and communications. Prayer is the way I talk with the God of my understanding. Listening in quiet solitude is another way of communication. Doing the next right thing and taking the Steps of AA brings me closer into that relationship. Thanks for letting me share.
I continually surrender to the loving God of my understanding. This has worked for me now for almost eleven years.
I continue to be open to love and service in AA and the world.
Without AA and the simple program outlined in the steps of the Big Book, I would still be trapped in the fear that things would not turn out as I wanted.
And you know what? they haven’t and I am just fine! God knows better what I need than I do!
LuAnn, a grateful recovering alcoholic