We were talking about the Serenity Prayer today and how important that one prayer is to so many of us. I sat and listened as others talked about the experiences with this prayer. As I did, I was impressed with how many have benefited by being able to express their faith in this prayer and the results it has brought to them. In a number of cases, exactly what they prayed for; serenity.
If I am going to stay sober, I know I have to have that element in my life; peace of mind and serenity. That state of mind I used to have, where chaos and crises reigned all the time, cannot coexist with sobriety. It is the antithesis of a sober mind. That promise that we will come to know peace of mind and serenity is so important to me and the life I live today.
There was a time in those early years in this program, when I had no understanding of the Serenity Prayer. I was told that I should practice this prayer, but I really didn’t know what it meant. Perhaps it was because I was so rebellious and was convinced that I knew better. After all Bill did say that early on rebellion dogged our every step. In my case that was so true. Except for alcohol, surrender was not in my vocabulary. I was damned if I was going to do anything, which smacked of goodness. That was not my style back then.
It was enough for me that I wasn’t drinking.
Only slowly did it begin to grow within just how important the spiritual life was going to be to my sobriety. When I came to understand how big a part a higher power was to play in my life, the 2nd Step, was it revealed to me what this prayer really meant. All of a sudden I seemed to know what those words meant. It was an expression of my reliance on higher power and my getting out of the way of this power, which could do for me what I couldn’t do for myself.
It really is an expression of ego deflation in depth. Surrendering to the 3rd Step. Praying for freedom of the bondage of self. Accepting the fact that I was going to have to change all my thinking and way of living, in order to bring my alcoholism under control. But not my control, but that of the God of my understanding. It was then, I believe, that I really came to know how powerless I really was. Up to that point, I only thought I knew.
God grant me the serenity…Without my higher power, God, there is no such thing. And only through the process of these 12 Steps can I possibly understand that. I have to change to know what this all means. What it means is that I am able to stay sober a day at a time.