The Serenity Prayer (Long Form) and its History with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

The Serenity Prayer is chanted at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings often at the end of the ceremony in the place of the Lords Prayer. The short form of the Serenity Prayer contains 4 lines and is the one most often chanted in these rituals, the long form adds 11 lines to it for a total of 15 lines. I mention this because the Serenity Prayer most often quoted and sometimes even permanently inked (tattooed/branded) on an AA prospects skin is roughly only 1/3 of the total prayer.

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 often forgotten part begins here ---}
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuh

Source:http://www.cptryon.org/prayer/special/serenity.html

The Serenity Prayer was first penned and used by pastor Reinhold Niebuhr in 1943, at the height of World War II and was not meant to be used as a prayer for recovery from Alcoholism. The first use of the prayer was at the very small and rural Union Church in Heath, Massachusetts. It was meant as a prayer to help those whose lives, families and communities had been ravaged by war to cope with their losses.

Niebuh's daughter, Elisabeth Sifton has written a book about the prayer called,"The Serenity Prayer, Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War" (ISBN-10: 0393057461) in which she explains the history of the prayer which by 1944 appeared in the "Book of Prayers and Services for the Armed Forces."

Like most of Bill Wilson's work, the prayer was "borrowed" for use by the fellowship when Ruth Hock, Wilson's first secretary saw it used at the bottom of an obituary and asked a printer named Henry S. to print the prayer on some cards which were handed out to various groups in AA to be included in the chanting rituals. It was not until the mid 1950's at a time when Bill Wilson was experimenting with the mind altering drug LSD as a way to enhance Spirituality and his adulterous liaison with a young Grapevine editor named Helen Wynn, that the Serenity Prayer actually caught on and was widely adopted.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/03/the-serenity-prayer_n_1473196.html