Morrise Luckey, M.O. Med., LISAC, ICADAC, ABCAC, is the Clinical Director of Sage Holistic Counseling. Morrise has a Masters Degree in Oriental Medicine and 30 years experience counseling and lecturing across the United States and internationally. His educational background includes the study of psychology, counseling, and leadership management, and he is an internationally certified alcohol and drug addiction counselor.
Last Man Standing
Between the lines of a resume hide a life story: I was born in Chicago, Illinois, where I lived until the age of six, when I was taken from my family and placed in an orphanage in Des Plaines, Illinois. Maryville was a Catholic orphanage and lived up to the stereotype that orphanages had in the early 1950s. Yet, when my grandparents came for me at age nine, I left Maryville with the benefit of a good elementary education, an understanding and regard for discipline, and a love of sports.
That passion for sports, coupled with my ability, blossomed through the years I lived with my grandparents and bore fruit at the end of my eighth grade year when I received a full scholarship to St. Joseph's Military Academy in Hays, Kansas. There I found I was the only Afro-American in a 900-mile radius; consequently, I quickly learned not only how to fight for my beliefs but also the skills of negotiation and conciliation.
Upon graduation from St. Joseph's, I embarked on a military career that would ultimately span twenty years. I had always known I wanted to be a soldier: I had cut my teeth of patriotism on the comic book, "Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandoes", and a military career embodied my credo of service, duty, honor, and country.
I retired from the U.S. Army, with medical disability and the Congress-approved rank of Senior Sgt. Field 1st, after completing multiple combat tours in the Republic of Vietnam and other arenas, and went back to school. I was determined to acquire new skills that would lead to a second career in a profession other than the traditional, ex-military avenues of security and law enforcement.
While at school, I supported myself through full-time employment at a local hospital. There, I soon found I had an ability to connect with, and influence, teenagers and young adults, which would ultimately result in my decision to enter into another battle, the war against drugs and alcohol abuse, a war which has become never-ending.
Yet, I had set my mind to a career in Chinese medicine and, after completing a Masters Program in New Mexico, I moved to Hawaii. There, I soon found myself as the only male therapist on a 30-bed Women's Unit, treating women and their newborn, addicted children for crystal methamphetamine use.
While living in Hawaii, an invitation was made for me to study Chinese medicine in Beijing, but fate would intervene. As I vacationed on the way to China, the U.S. military accidentally bombed the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo, and I was convinced that, with my military background, a sabbatical in China would not be good for my health.
Fate dictated that the next step in my life would actually take me to the beaches of Thailand, where I would spend a year counseling the many Europeans who journey to the country with one desire…to do drugs, and lots of them. It was during this time that I surrendered to what I had known for a long time: my calling was as an addictions counselor.
Since that time, as a state-licensed and internationally-certified drugs and alcohol addictions counselor, I have worked with individuals and their families from all areas of society, and quickly realized there was dire need in the local community for a structured, Intensive Outpatient program.
I opened SAGE Holistic Counseling with a small amount of capital and a large amount of motivation; as a human being, my dream is to see chemical dependency eliminated from our society and I am confident that with the team I have assembled at SAGE, I will be help make that dream a reality.
Throughout my life, I have always considered myself as "the last man standing". Regardless of the time, place, or circumstances, I have never given up, I have always followed through, and if I have given my word on something, I have never reneged on that commitment.
My personal mission is simple: do no harm, help others, nurture the future generation, and operate a successful, thriving business.
