20250614 - The only thing stopping me is me20250614 - The only thing stopping me is me
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.
55:39•9 Jul 2026
The Only Thing Stopping Me Is Me: Prayer, Fear and a Quiet Mind in Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Short, regular practices like guided prayer and two-minute check-ins can create real moments of peace in sobriety.
- Alcoholism is described as a mental allergy, where an overactive, fault-finding mind drives the urge to escape with substances.
- The main barrier to a relationship with a higher power is often personal prejudice and old ideas, rather than evidence or events.
- Seeing that many problems exist only in fearful, future-focused thinking can reduce their power and bring lightness.
- Sharing spiritual tools with others—such as the two-minute "rightly relating" practice—can strengthen one’s own recovery.
“"All of my troubles are of my own making."”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction? In this gathering from "Love Your Life, with Randy Mermell", long-time alcoholic in recovery Randy guides a group through 20 minutes of quiet sitting and a deeply practical version of the AA Third Step Prayer, turning it into a breath-by-breath exercise in connection. Rather than talking about spirituality in theory, the focus is on doing it together, right now.
Randy walks everyone through addressing a higher power directly, line by line: "Relieve me of the bondage of self" becomes an invitation to imagine a mind with no stories, no opinions, just openness. He keeps returning to a central idea: "All of my troubles are of my own making"—not as self-blame, but as a way of seeing how painful thinking, rather than outside events, usually drives the urge to escape with alcohol or other behaviours.
With over 28 years of sobriety, Randy explains alcoholism as a mental allergy: an "unsatisfiable, fault-finding, opinionated mind" that alcohol once treated perfectly, until it didn’t. Prayer, meditation, and the 12 Steps become his new treatment, giving him enough moments of peace to consider Step Three—handing his will and life over to a higher power, one moment at a time.
Group members like Bodie, Brian, Jeff, Anne, Sarah, Evan, and Mark share candidly about ego, fear, trauma, and the sneaky pull toward old coping habits. One person notes how catastrophising thoughts can become “laughable” once seen clearly; another describes nearly relapsing after trauma therapy, and staying sober by focusing on gratitude and support.
If you’re looking for a meeting-style episode where meditation, Step Two and Step Three aren’t just talked about but practised, this one offers a calm yet honest space to sit, breathe, and maybe try a two-minute experiment with your own higher power. Where might your day shift if you gave it those two minutes?
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