20250525 - It’s not personal20250525 - It’s not personal
Love Your Life, with Randy Mermell
Randy Mermell is an international coach, speaker, and podcaster. Randy helps people live happy and purposeful lives. Drawing from his own experience from 20 years of happy marriage, raising two daughters, and his success as an entrepreneur, he has helped others get through all types of professional and personal challenges, including love, marriage, children, jobs, and finding passion in everything we do. With over 28 years of sobriety, and success in his own life overcoming low self-esteem, addictions to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and coffee Randy draws on his real-life experience to lead meditation and recovery retreats internationally.
56:34•11 Jun 2026
“It’s Not Personal”: Quieting the Self‑Talking Mind in Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Alcoholism is described as an unsatisfiable, fault-finding, opinionated mind that needs daily treatment, not just abstinence from alcohol.
- Guided use of the Third Step prayer, with pauses and questions after each line, helps make a real connection with a higher power.
- Letting go of internal debating and asking “What would you have me do?” opens space for intuitive guidance and lightens emotional heaviness.
- Spiritual practices such as meditation and enlarging one’s spiritual life are presented as key protection against relapse and destructive behaviour.
- Community sharing shows that honest support, healthy restraint, and willingness to act on guidance can transform difficult situations in sobriety.
“My devastating weakness is not alcohol. It's my mind.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This gathering with host Randy Mermell blends 20 minutes of quiet meditation, a line‑by‑line Third Step prayer, and very candid sharing about alcoholism as a daily, living condition rather than something that ends with the last drink. Randy guides a gentle visualisation of a golden ball of energy in the chest, then walks through the Third Step prayer one breath at a time.
Rather than reciting on autopilot, he pauses after each line and asks real questions: “Do I really offer myself to my higher power right here, right now? All of me?” He talks plainly about his alcoholism as an “unsatisfiable, fault-finding, opinionated mind” that tells stories and takes everything personally – even being cut off in traffic – unless he turns to a higher power instead of to his own thinking. The conversation then opens up to the group.
Rachel shares about meeting a fellow member in jail for a second embezzlement case, and how she chose to hug and support someone she doesn’t even like, because the programme has taught her that this is a progressive illness and that her own safety lies in enlarging her spiritual life.
Stephanie talks about a tender day out with her adult son and the emotional tug-of-war over whether to bail him out financially, realising that the uncomfortable feeling might actually be healthy restraint. Scott reflects on evacuations after a fire and how catastrophe stripped life back to basics, much like admitting alcoholism did for him. Frederico describes restless, suicidal thinking and the shock of noticing his “self-talking mind” as something separate from who he really is.
Others, including Bodie, Kath and Nancy, echo how relying on a higher power – rather than the debating society in their heads – brings relief, guidance, and a sense that they’re not facing this illness alone. If you’ve ever wondered why your own mind can feel like the enemy, this session shows how a spiritual toolkit, simple meditation, and community might make that battle a little lighter.
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