“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can – and the wisdom to know the difference.”

For me, one of great recovery tools has been this serenity prayer.

If I keep this centuries old dictum close at hand when things get too complicated or busy, it helps me to sort things out so they can be easily understood.

Because I’ve worked in the recovery field for over 20 years I’m constantly presented with situations that require simplifying. Often those in early recovery show up in my office with a bundle of problems. They don’t have a job. They have to meet with their parole office. They’re behind on their child support. They don’t have money for bus fare. They’re behind on their taxes.

And when they show up with these issues – just to complicate things even more – they’ve put them all in a bundle and mixed them together so tightly they don’t know why they have so much confusion and anxiety in their lives. But the principles of the serenity prayer help to sort things out.

The first thing I do is have them list their problems. Then I have them go through the list to see which issues they can resolve at the moment. My experience has been that most of our perceived problems lie off in the future and don’t need to be dealt with at this moment. Once they unbundle their issues and look at them in the clear light of day things don’t seem so daunting. Many of the issues they look at as being problems requiring immediate answers are things that can be dealt with over a longer time frame.

Grant me the serenity...