Rescuing Lives from the Fire of Addiction
As regards addiction, this we must learn: We are rescuing people from a fire that we have ourselves set and expecting them to live in a burning building we refuse to put out.
Richard Clark was born in Ontario, Canada, an early baby-boomer. He wandered through the 1960s and college in a manner of protest and experimentation and traveled widely throughout North America. He was known to lean heavily on a line from a William Blake poem: “The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” [1] Certainly, there was a lot of excess, but some people might question where that excess led him.
He’s been a construction worker, miner, soldier, military policeman, security consultant, driving instructor, police officer, seniors’ social worker, church chaplain, teacher, artist, musician, seminar leader, health consultant, writer/author, business owner, therapist, and counsellor. Richard began addressing his own addiction(s) in 1980 and, at various times, has lived in both Benedictine and Buddhist monasteries for extended periods. Since 1996 he has been committed to ancient Buddhism (Arhat stream) and has been honoured and recognized as Pratyeka-buddha… and still working at it.
Unity unfolds in unexpected ways.
Richard trained in addictions treatment and the issues related to addictions at several colleges and private training centres in Canada and the United States. He is an addiction counsellor with internationally recognized Canadian certification (CACII / 1992 – and CAC / 2006, Canadian Council of Professional Certification). Richard also holds certificates in group therapy, trauma resolution, and university-level adult education. He has maintained a private practice since 1985 as a counsellor, consultant, therapist, program developer, and educator. His special interests are in resolving addiction and relationship conflict. Other specialties and interests include teaching adults, fostering Buddhist discipline, applied problem solving, communications, conflict in sexual conduct, understanding religions, and healing trauma (as in PTSD and related conditions). These are approached with combinations of education, talk therapy, body-energy healing, and addiction awareness. He is certified in Addiction Counselling, Body Energy Healing (EFT), Life Skills (Saskatchewan NewStart), and Self-Regulating Therapy (SRT). He has maintained a private practice since 1985.
He’s offered seminars and lectures to about ninety-thousand people on topics that include poly-addiction, integrated addictions, sexuality, family violence and interventions, relationships, change, stress, trauma, religion, culture, spirituality, Buddhism (history and modern application), atheism, applied problem solving, gender issues, therapy and counselling, life skills, body energy healing, interpersonal communications, twelve step programs, and residential treatment. In Canada he has worked in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia. Outside of Canada, his work has taken him to Russia, China, the United States, Ukraine, and England.
He has offered his expertise in recovery and addiction to Corrections Canada, prisons in the USA, treatment centres, non-profit agencies, First Nations (Canada), and private industry. He’s a published author of four books, is presently writing his fifth one, and the author of screenplays for film. Richard was a licensed massage therapist (before 2000), and since 2001 has been a health consultant and business owner regarding specific health concerns. Information and videos on general physical health are at: www.organicsulfur-msm.ca
He is presently single and lives near Vancouver, British Columbia. Richard he enjoys his work, close friendships, making music with his collection of guitars, and writing books and screenplays.
[1] This William Blake quote comes from his poem Proverbs of Hell, which begins: “In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. / Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead. / The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. / Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. / He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence…” From: The Portable Blake, Edited by Alfred Kazin, Viking Portable Library, p. 252.