20250614 - Sanity is a quiet mind20250614 - Sanity is a quiet mind
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.
59:48•25 Jun 2026
Sanity Is a Quiet Mind: Randy Mermell on Prayer, Fear and the Disease of More
Episode Overview
- Alcoholism is described as a disease centred in the mind, showing up as an unsatisfied, fault‑finding, opinionated inner voice.
- Sanity is framed as having a quiet, open mind, rather than a life free of external problems.
- The 12 steps are presented as a way of life that must be practised in the present moment, not just learned or talked about.
- Talking honestly to a higher power and writing fears down on paper are suggested as practical ways to reduce fear and mental noise.
- Freedom comes from being a giver and relying on a higher power, rather than chasing self‑will and external fixes for happiness.
“For me, the definition of sanity is a quiet mind.”
What insights can experts and survivors share about addiction? Here, long‑term sober coach and alcoholic Randy Mermell centres the whole gathering on one simple idea: sanity is a quiet mind. The session opens with 20 minutes of guided meditation and a line‑by‑line walk through the AA Third Step Prayer. Randy slows everything right down, asking people to breathe with each line and actually *feel* what they’re asking for: “Relieve me of the bondage of self… If I had no story.
No opinions. No ideas. Old ideas. Just a quiet open mind.” It’s calm, practical, and grounded firmly in AA language.
Randy then explains alcoholism as a disease of the mind, not the bottle, describing it as an “unsatisfiable, fault finding, opinionated mind that’s always in a hurry, easily frustrated and can’t stand the word no.” He stresses that the 12 steps only work when they’re lived “as a way of life, right here, right now,” treating the restless, irritable and discontent mind in the present moment.
Group shares from Stephanie, Claire, Matt, Buddy, Laura, Mark, Ashley, Eric and CL keep things real and relatable. They talk about balancing change and patience in early sobriety, clinging to outcomes, relapse, fear, guilt, and the relief of learning to rely on a higher power instead of self‑will. Randy keeps bringing it back to simple actions: talk to a higher power like a friend, write fears down on paper, and keep turning away from the noisy self‑talk.
If you’re alcoholic, sober‑curious, or already in AA and wrestling with a busy head, this session offers a calm, honest look at how prayer, meditation, and the steps can quiet the mind. Where might your life soften if you stopped arguing with your own thoughts and started asking for help, one breath at a time?
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