I was pretty confused when I got to AA.  I wanted to control my drinking to try to keep a job,  but I did not know what an alcoholic is or whether I was one.  I also didn't know if there was a God and whether I could trust him if there was.  But one thing I figured out pretty soon was that there were two things I could do that might help,  go to meetings and say the Serenity Prayer.  I may not be able to pray it, but I could certainly say it,  and that seemed to be all I could use when unable to go to the next meeting on the list,  usually because I needed to be doing the job I was trying to keep.

I used the prayer as a kind of mantra that I would say or sing, over and over,  often as I was walking to my scary job as a high school teacher.  I would say the whole thing but the part that really caught my attention was "serenity to accept the things I cannot change."  It was fairly obvious to me that most of what upset me were things I cannot change,  including anything that just happened as it was clear that I couldn't change the past. Serenity sounded pretty attractive,  although I hardly knew what it was.  I recall someone mentioning peace of mind,  and my immediate reply was that I would settle for a truce.  Maybe courage and wisdom seemed like too much to wish for at the time,  and not as attractive.  I eventually found some degree of serenity and found it a bit disappointing as it seemed a bit dull. I wanted exciting serenity.

I learned that almost everything I could change was what was going on between my ears,  my habits,  actions and attitudes,  and I didn't even seem to have much control over them.  I had attitudes mixed up with emotions, and my emotions were like unlabled warning lights on a dashboard,  flickering on and off,  bugging me but giving me little in the way of useful information. Those warning lights eventually had labels,  but there still seem to be a few that are defective,  going on and off seemingly for no reason.  I took comfort a few years ago when someone told me that we cannot control our emotions,  but we can control our attitudes and the feelings tend to follow. I always thought that one of the great truths in life was that shit happens.
It was a bit of a revelation when someone told me that it is life that happens,  and it just seems like shit if my attitudes are still alcoholic ones.

I eventually got a bit of the wisdom mentioned in the prayer,  but that seemed to come more from just trying to do the next right thing than from trying to use my intellect.  I guess I was fortunate that I always had a pretty strong conscience.  Drowning it took so much alcohol that the result was more likely to be falling asleep in the corner than doing something naughty.  I recall a guy who said someone in his group was told to listen to his inner voice and protested that, his inner voice said things like, "KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!" It took me over 20 years of recovery to work out that God does,  at least sometimes,  speak through my conscience.  I had been wondering why he never whispered in my ear.  Knowledge of God's will seems to be more of a feeling that I will come to regret it if I do B instead of A.