20251022 - Living the prayer20251022 - Living the prayer
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.
39:09•29 Oct 2026
Living the Prayer: Randy Mermell on Delusion, Resentment and Real Sobriety
Episode Overview
- Alcohol is described as a temporary treatment for a self‑talking, restless mind, not the core of the disease itself.
- The fourth step is presented as a factual inventory of resentments, focusing on what happened rather than how it felt.
- Randy highlights the delusion that external achievements or possessions will finally create lasting happiness.
- True change is linked to daily character building, honesty, tolerance, and love of man and God, rather than material comfort.
- Prayer and meditation are framed as actions to be lived in the present, offering relief from self rather than a route to more stuff.
“Saying a prayer and living a prayer are two different things.”
What makes a recovery story truly inspiring? Here, Randy Mermell talks candidly about alcoholism as a "disease that centres in my mind" and how alcohol once felt like the perfect shortcut to escape an unsatisfiable, fault‑finding, opinionated mind. He explains his idea of being "allergic" to alcohol, describing how it used to let him dance, socialise, and forget his story, before eventually becoming something his body simply could no longer tolerate.
Drawing on the 12 steps, Randy focuses heavily on the fourth step: making a resentment list as a "fact‑finding and fact‑facing proposition". You’ll hear him walk through the process of listing people who bother you, then writing down what they actually did, keeping stories and feelings out of it. For anyone dealing with addiction or emotional chaos, this practical breakdown feels very accessible. A major theme is delusion—the lies we tell ourselves that we believe are true.
Randy describes the common alcoholic belief that "one day" the right job, partner, house, or even haircut will finally bring happiness, and contrasts it with the possibility of being "happily and usefully whole right now". He stresses that there’s "no residual sobriety from yesterday’s recovery"; the work has to be lived today. The meeting-style format brings in real voices from the international group.
Lauren shares an emotional moment sitting next to her qualifying ex in the cinema and realising, "there’s nothing that I need outside of myself". Matt reflects on nearly a decade sober and the danger of stepping away from character-building. Bodhi talks about prideful resistance to the programme, while Vanesha and Holly both notice how wanting and chasing external things block simple presence.
You’ll get a mix of spiritual talk, humour, and straight AA language, all aimed at people dealing with alcoholism, codependency, or emotional sobriety issues. It’s especially relevant if you’re tired of chasing happiness “out there” and are curious what it might mean to start living the prayer instead of just saying it. What if happiness isn’t a future destination, but something that’s only ever available right now?
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