For those who have been affected by alcoholism, paraalcoholism, dysfunction, and abuse, and seek recovery in twelve-step fraternities, the Serenity Prayer recited at the beginning of their meetings is an integral part of the process.
“The Serenity Prayer…represents a concentrated measure of serenity, humility, courage, wisdom, and spirituality in 25 words,” according to the Adult Children of Alcoholics textbook (World Service Organization, 2006, p. 274). “It’s a prayer that has anchored twelve-step meetings and twelve-step fellowship development for decades around the world. It’s a proven prayer that makes anyone who hears it stop.”
It is at once food for the soul and the antidote and opposite to the instability and chaos often found in many homes and, as an extension of them, in much of the world today.
Its recitation in recovery-based meetings serves four fundamental purposes.
1). Establishes a connection to God or a Higher Power of the person’s understanding.
two). It ensures that all attendees are linked in a similar way and as a result are connected to each other.
3). It allows God to assess both individual and collective difficulties and determine consensus thinking, if necessary.
4). It allows you, during individual actions, to lift and dissolve incidents and problem areas of a person’s life, gradually restoring his soul to wholeness.
Because alcoholism and its many psychological, emotional, and spiritual manifestations are too powerful for the individual to triumph over, and because God is so much bigger than that disease, and everything else for that matter, healing alone it can start in His care, when all are commonly connected. As a result, that healing depends first and foremost on surrender to Him.
The first three lines of the prayer provide a road map to the state of serenity, sometimes impossible to achieve.
The first, the request for serenity to “accept the things I cannot change,” puts a person’s capacity and place in the world into perspective. Although you may believe that you have the cornerstone of truth and that you could “shape the world if you would only listen to me and follow my advice,” the person is, in the end, constrained by their own finite abilities, viewpoints, and interpretations. His influence, as a result of this condition, is very limited.
The second line, in which a person prays for “the courage to change the things I can,” indicates that they have certain abilities and strengths to change themselves and the way they view others and circumstances, especially with the help from a Higher Power.
“Al-Anon helps me accept what I cannot change and change what I can,” as one member shares in his text Courage to Change (Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc., 1992, p. 284). “I can’t control the way alcoholism has affected my life, I can’t control another person, and I can’t make life go according to my plans.”
Serenity results from the “wisdom of knowing the difference.” It is calming and complete, in and of itself. It creates a new way of thinking, and a new way of thinking creates serenity. It is an inside job. It is the equivalent of self-acceptance, self-harmony and self-peace. And it is realizing that whatever has already happened, whether the person was the cause or the recipient of it, cannot be changed, no matter what you do now.
But the full Serenity Prayer, which is rarely read at twelve-step meetings, indicates that this state should be sought not only by those who have been exposed to family dysfunction and difficulties, but by anyone who is part of the family. human race and strive to understand and accept it. He advocates living one day at a time and enjoying one moment at a time, but “taking… this sinful world as it is (and) not as I want it.”
“The serenity prayer helped me believe that serenity, courage, and wisdom were achievable,” according to another Al-Anon member in his book Hope for Today (Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc, 2002, p. two). “It strengthened my belief in God and gave me hope for a brighter future… (This) can bring light to the parts of myself that are still clouded by my past.”
The Bible says that “as you think, so you are.” If you can do it calmly, you will be able to better see the world in this state, since much of it exists within you.
Article Sources:
Adult children of alcoholics. Torrance, California: World Service Organization, 2006.
Courage to change. Virginia Beach, Virginia: Headquarters of the Al-Anon Family Group, Inc., 1992.
Hope for today. Virginia Beach, Virginia: Home of the Al-Anon Family Group, Inc., 2002.