My name is Tom M.; I’ve been sexually sober since December 2007. As I work the Steps and continue in the SA fellowship, I find that my life is so much better. An important part of my recovery has been the serenity prayer. A key concept of this prayer is that I need to “accept the things I cannot change”—and, since I can change very little around me, I need to focus on acceptance.

When I was living in my addiction, I was usually on a collision course with someone (AA 60). Anger and resentments fed my addiction. I left many damaged lives in my wake, including those I loved the most: my wife and children. I was quick to blame others and slow to take any responsibility for my attitudes or actions.

During the 25 years after I got married and before I came to SA, my marriage experienced many problems. Most of them were directly related to my addiction. If anyone or anything threatened to interfere with my addiction, I would react in anger and do whatever I could to deflect the threat.

My wife and I tried counseling on a variety of occasions, but I was not honest with the counselor and did not reveal my most basic issues. Instead, I would try to “win” the discussions so that I could come out looking like the victim. Of course that did not do much good.

But through SA, I’ve learned that I can only look at my part of any problem, and so I have learned to communicate with my wife (and others) in a more loving way. Nowadays, whenever I feel a disturbance or if I experience a disagreement, misunderstanding, frustration, or anger, I remind myself to turn to program principles. I look for my part—even if I think my part is small—and I try to work on that. I’m usually tempted to think, “What about her part?” or “He was the one actually in the wrong!” But it is more helpful for my serenity to look at myself and ask questions such as the following:

• Could I have communicated better?
• Was there a bit of selfish motive on my part?
• Was I less than 100% truthful and transparent?
• Was I acting out of fear, pride, or embarrassment?
• Am I holding on to resentments and anger?

Through SA, I’ve found that if I take a good look at myself, I can usually find that I had some part in any situation, and that is where I need to put my efforts. I may need to change my attitude, make amends, work the Steps, talk with my sponsor, or read program literature. I try to do whatever it takes to regain my serenity and restore relationships.

If I focus on the other person and try to exert control or “fix” the person, this usually leads to frustration, anger, and resentment—which then become a threat to my sobriety. When I describe these types of situations to my sponsor, he sometimes listens to me gripe but eventually he’ll ask, “Is the issue worth losing your sobriety over?” Of course the answer is “No.” Then I have to humble myself, get back to working the Steps, and surrender the particular issue.

One passage that has helped me immensely to focus on my part during the past few years of my sobriety is this reading from Step Ten: “It is a spiritual axiom that, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurts us and we are sore, we are in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about “justifiable” anger? If somebody cheats us, aren’t we entitled to be mad? Can’t we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? For us of A.A. these are dangerous exceptions. We have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it” (12&12 90).

Another passage that I refer to often is in “Acceptance was the Answer” from the AA Big Book: “And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today. When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation—some fact of my life—unacceptable to me and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake. Until I could accept my alcoholism, I could not stay sober; unless I accept life completely on life’s terms, I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes” (417).

I need to avoid the trap of trying to direct other peoples’ behavior or expecting others’ programs to look like mine. I need to surrender to God to help me along in my recovery and accept the fact that He will work in others’ lives in the way that He sees is best. I need to surrender to God, asking Him to help me along in my recovery and trusting that He will work in me in the way and at the pace that He deems best. This is how I gain serenity, today.