Veteran trainer, speaker, author and consultant Randy Dickson has emerged from semi-retirement and is moving in a new direction.
Jeb the wonder dog is along for the ride.
Straight From the Wilderness is being developed by professionals and lay persons who feel led to address the increasingly devastating impact of alcohol and drug abuse/addiction among the general population, first responders, and within the faith-based community.
For twenty years, Randy traveled throughout the US as a trainer, speaker, author, and consultant, helping agencies, organizations and individuals develop strategies to mitigate the negative impact of critical incidents, especially among law enforcement officers and other first responders.
Randy is on the road again with a new message and a new set of objectives.
Straight From the Wilderness is not only a concept and a mission, it's Randy's personal story. His depiction of how one can be drawn into, and then retrieved from the wilderness, appears in his presentations, training courses, and will soon be published under the same title in his second book.
46.3 million people aged 12 or older (or 16.5 percent of the population) met the applicable DSM-5 criteria for having a substance use disorder in the past year; comprised of 29.5 million people who were classified as having an alcohol use disorder, and 24 million people who were classified as having a drug use disorder. You know them. They are among you today, and it may be someone very close to you. You are not alone, and there are resources available to you.
It's a hard conversation to have, but it's a conversation that may save a life. Approaching the conversation with love, compassion, and concern requires tact, diplomacy, and a level of insight into the basic tenets of crisis intervention and high-intensity communication skills. This workshop discusses the who, how, when (and when not) and the why pertaining to that critical interaction. Additionally, the workshop offers resource information and tips to navigate the resource network.
Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promise gives me life.
Psalm 119:49-50
Randy is often asked if it was his chosen professions or the significant events of his life that later caused him to venture into the wilderness of depression, alcoholism, and isolation as he approached retirement. For many, including Randy, this predicament was especially puzzling, given that alcohol had never been a problem or an issue in his life. Ever.
The high-impact events of his life were there, including the tragic death of his brother at 23 years of age. Professionally, when he worked in law enforcement, he was involved in a fatal shooting as he and his partner interrupted an armed robbery in progress. Any one of the incidents or the patients he worked with as an EMT could have contributed to his difficulties, as could any one of the thousands of cases he worked as a law enforcement-based crisis and trauma counselor. It might have been his deployments as a crisis counselor to the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, or the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City. Maybe the years he spent in a fragile and failing marriage played a part. Randy says it's impossible to pinpoint any single factor or contributor, although it was likely the cumulative effect of it all.
Within a few years of his retirement, Randy (and others who knew him) were asking more questions: How does a man who has enjoyed an above-average career; who had a beautiful wife and a wonderful son and daughter-in-law; who lived in a spacious home on thirteen wooded acres, then find himself divorced, living in a travel trailer on the Texas coast, perpetually drunk, and physically, emotionally, and spiritually wrecked. There were other questions: Would he be able to escape that way of life? Is there any hope for him? Is this the end of the road for him?
It was almost the end of the road for him, again. And as Randy faced his own mortality for the third time in his life, he found life-saving hope in a Savior that he had known since the age of fifteen. Randy now admits that his walk with Christ had varied between being in close step, to being on the far side of the road, his spiritual blinders on and his fingers jammed firmly into his spiritual ears.
But a new relationship was established as he lay in a hospital bed in Corpus Christi, Texas, just before Christmas. Randy now jokes that the treatment team was concerned he was going to die, and he was a bit concerned that he wouldn't.
But that newfound relationship continues to grow today. Randy's time as a sojourner in the wilderness, along with the total surrender of that previous life at the age of sixty-five, laid the foundation for a new mission (now that he's decided to accept it) to share the Good News that we all can be retrieved, straight from any wilderness, by God's love, grace, healing, care, and forgiveness.
Randy is colorfully candid about his journey, and he welcomes opportunities to share his story and the true Gospel of Jesus Christ as a Redeemer, Savior and straight-from-the-wilderness Guide.
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