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Where did the Serenity Prayer come from in A.A.?

In short:

  • The Serenity Prayer is not in the Big Book's program text (pp. 1–164), its forewords or its appendices. It appears only in some of the members' stories at the back of the fourth edition.
  • It came into A.A. in New York in the early 1940s. A member saw it in a newspaper obituary notice and brought it to the office, and A.A. began printing it on cards and putting one in every letter it sent out.
  • Bill W. wrote in 1957: "No one can tell for sure who first wrote the Serenity Prayer" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). He listed several claims, including the one that it was by Reinhold Niebuhr.
  • The sources disagree on the date (1941 or early 1942), on the exact wording of the clipping, and on the name of the man who paid for the first cards.

Not in the program text

A search of the whole fourth edition finds the prayer only in the personal stories, for example pp. 345, 357, 401, 419 and 559. The word "serenity" does appear in the main text, in other senses: Bill's peace and serenity after his experience at Towns Hospital (p. 14), the hope "to match calamity with serenity" (p. 68), and the promise "We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace" (p. 84). None of these is the prayer.

How it came into A.A.: Bill's account (1957)

In A.A. Comes of Age, Bill says that just before Ruth Hock, the office secretary, left in early 1942, "newsman Jack," a New York member, showed them a clipping (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). It was an obituary notice, and under it were the words: "God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference." (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

"Never had we seen so much A.A. in so few words." (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). A friend, Howard, came into the office and offered to pay for printing it on cards to go into every piece of mail (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). They did that for several years, and the prayer quickly came into general use, alongside "our two other favorites, the Lord's Prayer and the Prayer of St. Francis" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

On who wrote it, Bill says some credited the early Greeks, some an anonymous English poet, some an American naval officer, and that Jack Alexander, who had looked into it, "attributes it to the Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr of the Union Theological Seminary" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Bill's conclusion: "Anyhow, we have the prayer and it is said thousands of times daily." (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957).

Pass It On (1984)

The later biography gives more detail. It says the prayer was found in the "In Memoriam" column of an early June 1941 edition of the New York Herald-Tribune (Pass It On, 1984). It gives the notice's wording, addressed to "Mother" and beginning "Mother — God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change" (Pass It On, 1984), going on with "I can" in the second line and ending "Goodbye."

It quotes Ruth Hock: "Jack C. appeared at the office one morning, and he showed me the obituary notice" (Pass It On, 1984), and she copied it to use in letters to groups and loners. In her account, "Horace C. had the idea of printing it on cards and paid for the first printing" (Pass It On, 1984). Elsewhere Pass It On notes that in his 1957 book Bill called Horace C. "Howard A." (Pass It On, 1984), so the two accounts may name the same man.

A note in Pass It On says the prayer's origins are obscure: it may go back to the philosopher Boethius, about 500 A.D.; it is usually credited to Reinhold Niebuhr, a 20th-century theologian, who in turn credited an 18th-century theologian (Pass It On, 1984). Our copy of that note is damaged by the scan, so the second theologian's name can't be read with confidence.

Not everyone welcomed it (1980)

Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers quotes an early Ohio member, Oscar W., describing the friction between the Midwest and New York in the 1940s: "I don't like the Serenity Prayer. New York brought it in, and we resented it." (Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers, 1980). To him it felt like the Oxford Group's praying coming back.

How it is used now

Later A.A. literature describes the prayer as a common part of meetings. P-16, The A.A. Group (© 2018), describing how a chairperson usually opens a meeting with the Preamble, adds: "Some call for a moment of silence and/or recite the Serenity Prayer" (P-16). In one fourth-edition story, a member describes the slogans on a meeting-room wall, ending with "The Serenity Prayer" (p. 345). Another says he had misread "the courage to change" as being about changing his marriage, when it meant changing himself (p. 419).

Where the sources differ

  • When. Bill (1957) puts it just before Ruth Hock left in early 1942 (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957). Pass It On (1984) says an early June 1941 newspaper (Pass It On, 1984).
  • The wording. Bill's version reads "grant us… we cannot change… we can" (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957); Pass It On gives the clipping as "grant me… I cannot change… I can" (Pass It On, 1984). The fourth-edition stories that quote it use the "us… we" form (pp. 357, 559).
  • Who paid for the cards. "Friend Howard" in 1957 (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957); Horace C. in Ruth Hock's memory, 1984 (Pass It On, 1984).
  • Who wrote it. Bill (1957) says no one can be sure (A.A. Comes of Age, 1957), and Pass It On (1984) calls the origins obscure (Pass It On, 1984). Both mention Niebuhr as the usual attribution; neither settles it, and neither does our sources.

Read it yourself

Sources

Source Pages Date
Alcoholics Anonymous, pp. 1–164, forewords and appendices (searched in full) 14, 68, 84 1939 text; later forewords and appendices
Alcoholics Anonymous, personal stories 345, 357, 401, 419, 559 fourth edition, 2001 (some stories older)
A.A. Comes of Age (Bill W.) — 1957
Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers — 1980
Pass It On — 1984
P-16, The A.A. Group — © 2018 (2023 printing)

The history books are cited by the file-page markers in our copies (f.), not printed pages.

Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. Quotations are brief and cited; the Big Book, P-16, A.A. Comes of Age, Dr. Bob and the Good Oldtimers and Pass It On are © A.A. World Services, Inc.

These pages answer questions about A.A. from A.A.'s own published literature, read in full, with every quote checked word for word against the page it cites. Recovery Starts is independent and not affiliated with Alcoholics Anonymous. What we read, and when each source was written.