“Acceptance”

One of my fellows at my homegroup talks often about how the ‘wisdom to know the difference’ is the mot important part of the serenity prayer. Accepting things we can’t change? Definitely not easy. Having courage to change what we can? It’s certainly possible. Recognizing the difference, knowing which is which? That’s the real trick, now, isn’t it?

If we can tell the difference, then we can recognize the things we can’t change. After that comes the hard part--accepting them. Acceptance is a difficult thing in general. For those of us who suffer from the disease, it’s a whole other monster all unto itself. We are control freaks, sometimes (often?) like angry children, constantly trying to force the world around us to be the way we think it should. But nowhere is it written that the universe is ours for the shaping.

I’ve written it before, and it bears repeating: it’s when we try to control the uncontrollable, that is what leads to unmanageability in our lives. Learning acceptance, being able to get out of denial and see things for how they really are and not as we would have them be, and then letting go of them, that is the work of Recovery. Sometimes the work is in the letting go; sometimes it’s in the breaking out of denial.

This is all first step stuff. What’s the spiritual principle behind the first step? Honesty. What does the first step deal with? Powerlessness. Unmanageability. Admitting we have the disease (whether we call ourselves an alcoholic or an addict or something else) is a practicing of this first step. We reaffirm the honest truth about ourselves: that we have the disease; we’re powerless over it; our lives have become unmanageable because of it. Every time we introduce ourselves to share at a meeting and identify ourselves as someone who suffers, we are practicing this principle.

Translating that principle into the rest of our lives, practicing it in all our affairs, isn’t easy. We do have some tools to help us. What else are we powerless over? Other people, places, and things. We can’t control them. What can we control? Ourselves. We can control our words, our action. We can’t control life, we have to learn to accept it on its own terms. We can control how we respond to it. And there is a hell of a lot of freedom given to us by our higher power in how we are allowed to respond to life. We can act. We can react. We can choose to do nothing. The key, that all-important first step, is to get out of denial and accept what is.

It takes courage to change the things we can. I think it takes courage, too, to accept what is. Sometimes we have to face some harsh truths that we’d rather not face because it would mean leaving our comfort zones, facing something new, different. Even if our circumstances are horrible, we tend to stay in them because they are familiar. Sometimes, the only way out is to reach a point where we are so miserable that we’re forced to admit to ourselves that we just can’t go on with things as they are. Our pain overcomes our fear of the unknown. We become willing to change. Some would say it like this: we surrender to the need to change.
Whatever words are used, be it Honesty, acceptance, surrender, they are all part of the beginning. They are the words used to describe the change that has taken place within us. We have made an internal shift and are now willing to move forward. You could even say that we’ve become unwilling to remain stuck.

There’s an old saying: “somethin’s gotta give”. Sometimes, that something is us.