I don’t remember the first time I heard or read the Serenity Prayer, but I do remember it struck me as both beautiful and wise. I didn’t memorize its words, but I identified with its contents. Then my husband Marlo and I were slammed by our son Matt’s telling us he was an alcoholic.
The Serenity Prayer embedded itself in my core as I recited it weekly at Al-Anon meetings with other relatives of alcoholics: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Weekly for several years, I heard fellow Al-Anon members describe through tears the stories of their inability to change their addicted loved ones and their journeys toward acceptance. I cried too as I told stories of Matt’s driving while drunk, his failed attempts at sobriety on his own, and his relapses after release from treatment programs.
I also found truth in an anonymous revision of that prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know that it’s me. Perhaps the anonymous author of that revision intended it as wit, but for me it became sanity-saving truth. My behavior was the only behavior I could change, not Matt’s.
Not ever since his birth. But especially not after he became addicted to alcohol. I also learned a broader lesson.
Blurred boundaries damaged my other relationships as well. I saw my ache to control those I loved. I prayed the .