20250716 - Claiming Spiritual20250716 - Claiming Spiritual
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.
53:16•30 Jul 2026
Claiming Spiritual Progress Over Perfection in Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Spiritual progress is something to be actively claimed through small acts of willingness, rather than waiting for perfection.
- Alcoholism is described as a physical allergy and a mental disease that appears as an unsatisfied, fault‑finding mind.
- Meditation and the third step prayer, done slowly and consciously, can help bring attention back to the present moment.
- Steps eight and nine are framed as a list and a willingness first, with actual amends guided and sometimes limited by a sponsor.
- Character defects such as gossip, control and perfectionism remain in long‑term sobriety and need ongoing spiritual treatment.
“We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? In this session of *Love Your Life*, Randy Mermell brings together meditation, the third step prayer, and raw honesty about alcoholism as a daily disease of the mind. The episode opens with a guided 20‑minute meditation and a slow, breath‑by‑breath walk through the third step prayer, anchored in a visual of a "golden ball of energy" in the chest.
Randy talks about directing each line of the prayer to that inner life force, asking, "Do I really, or can I, offer myself to my higher power right here, right now?" It’s a practical way to connect spirituality with recovery, one breath at a time.
Randy then explains what "I am alcoholic" means to him: a physical allergy to alcohol and a mental disease that "centers in my mind" and shows up as an "unsatisfiable fault‑finding opinionated mind that's always in a hurry, easily frustrated and can't stand the word no." He shares how new cars, jobs, money and relationships never fixed that inner restlessness, and how the 12 steps and a relationship with a higher power became his ongoing treatment.
A big theme is the line from the 12 and 12: "We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection." Randy challenges the tendency to use "not spiritually perfect" as a free pass, and instead asks whether anyone has actually claimed spiritual progress today—by reading pages 60–63, showing up to the meeting, or picking up the phone.
Group shares from Bea, Brian, Katie, Cia, Kathy, Nick, Matt and Phoebe add real‑life colour: shame around sober milestones, the trap of perfectionism, the pain and relief of steps eight and nine, gossip as a character defect, and even an ice‑bath moment that exposes how quickly the self‑talking mind screams "failure".
If you’re curious about blending prayer, meditation and the 12 steps into everyday recovery, this meeting‑style episode offers a grounded look at spiritual progress as something you claim, not something that magically appears.
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