Common AA Prayers

The 12 Step Prayers

Serenity Prayer

Grant me the Serenity,
to accept the things I can not change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.

Thy will not mine be done

The 9th Step Promises

If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not! They are being fulfilled among us – Sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

The Knots Prayer

Please untie the knots that are in my mind, my heart and my life. 

Remove the have nots, the can nots and the do nots that I have in my mind. 

Erase the will nots, may nots, might nots that may find a home in my heart.

Release me from the could nots, would nots and should nots that obstruct my life. 

And most of all, I ask that you remove from my mind,

my heart and my life all of the 'am nots' that I have allowed to hold me back, 

especially the thought that I am not good enough.

The “I Don’t Know” Prayer

Did you know there’s a Prayer called the “I Don’t Know” prayer?

You just go somewhere quiet and you sit at the feet of God and you say “I Don’t Know”.

I Don’t Know Where to go from here.

I Don’t Know What is happening.

I Don’t Know How to process this.

I Don’t Know What to do with these emotions.

I Don’t Know How to handle this situation.

And then with whatever little grain of Faith you have, you say, “But You Know.”

And you leave it there.

God most certainly hears your prayer.

A GRATITUDE PRAYER

Thank You, dear God, for another day,

The chance to live in a decent way,

To feel again the joy of living,

And happiness that comes from giving.

Thank You for friends who can understand

And the peace that flows from Your loving hand.

Help me to wake to the morning sun

With the prayer, “Today Thy will be done,”

For with Your help I will find the way.

Thank You again, dear God, for another day.

Prayer of St Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace – that where there is hatred, I may bring love 

– that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness 

– that where there is discord, I may bring harmony 

– that where there is error, I may bring truth 

– that where there is doubt, I may bring faith 

– that where there is despair, I may bring hope 

– that where there are shadows, I may bring light 

– that where there is sadness, I may bring joy. 

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted 

– to understand, than to be understood 

– to love, than to be loved. 

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. 

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. 

It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life