Said in meetings everywhere
The Serenity Prayer
Most AA meetings open or close with it. It's short enough to say under our breath in a hard moment, and it holds a whole way of living in three lines.
The prayer is usually credited to the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, from the 1930s. AA members found it in the early 1940s and it has been part of the fellowship ever since.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
THE SERENITY PRAYER · AS SAID IN AA
How many of us use it
Acceptance for what isn't ours to change. Courage for what is. And the wisdom to tell which is which — the part most of us ask for most.
Many of us say it before a hard phone call, in the car outside a meeting, or when a craving comes. If a craving is here right now, the page below is for exactly that.