Out West Events 2025 | Wild Courage: Offering Hope and Redemption

Editor’s Note: We would like to make the reader aware of references to suicide and self-harm in the following story. While some details may be difficult for some readers, they are in service of awareness and the hopeful catalyst for those that need help to seek it. 

Jeremy Morris helps those who are not supposed to need help.  

Ranchers, horseshoers, hunting guides, cowboys, and other men carry the burden of that stereotype, but Morris aims at dismantling it.  

“We all have emotions; we just need to learn what to do with them. They’re natural, they’re normal and they’re good. They’re check engine lights. And we can’t just put black electrical tape over the light like I used to do in my pickups and ignore it, because I blew up everything in my life doing that and running and hiding from pain,” Morris said.  

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“I feel like I’ve been so blessed to live on the redemptive side of addiction and suicide that I feel like I just want to spend the rest of my life trying to give away hope. That formalized into what is now Wild Courage,” Morris said. 

His nonprofit offers men a place to hear stories, tell their own, and heal all forms of brokenness through his podcast and in-person “fires” hosted all across the continent.  

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“All my heroes – old cowboys – died alone on their third or fourth marriage, not talking to their kids. Why? They were ‘tough’ and they rubbed some more dirt on it,” Morris said. “What if we could get men to open up and to heal and not rub some more dirt on it and just get tougher? We have got to change the narrative.” 

The power of story, camaraderie, and redemption is palpable in the work of Morris and his team. 

Morris’s own redemption story was the beginning of Wild Courage.  

Redemption 

Morris never attended the same school two years in a row until high school. As a result, he became charismatic and good at making friends. Throughout his childhood, he navigated his parents’ divorce, separation from his sister, an abusive stepparent, and frequent sexual abuse. 

“How’s a man going to talk about that, let alone a cowboy? There are just things you’re not supposed to talk about, but it was killing me,” he said. 

Undealt with, he carried his trauma into his relationships, work, and marriage. What began as casual drinking became alcoholism. “Drinking was social until it wasn’t. And then it wasn’t just at brandings or after the rodeo. I started drinking by myself, and then I started hiding it from my friends, and then it became my coping mechanism. I couldn’t push the pain down of all the stuff any longer.”  

Several dream jobs, his wedding, and his firstborn son were high points in life, but none could make him follow through on each promise to stop drinking.  

Rock bottom came for Morris after his wife separated from him. During this time, in one 48-hour stretch, he was charged with two DUI’s.  

“I had prayed for years for God to take this from me. I really wanted out of my circumstances; my life was a mess. My marriage was ending, or so I thought at the time. I’d burned every bridge available. I let everyone down and I just remember my prayer changing from, ‘God, take me out of my circumstances,’ to ‘I don’t want to be this kind of dad.’  

He, as a father, appealed to God the Father. At the time he said, “I can’t do this anymore and I’m ready to own what I need to own and I’m ready to go on the journey of figuring that out, even though I knew my circumstances were jacked up. I was in so much trouble and I’d never been so scared in my life.” 

His prayer was answered. Morris lost all desire for alcohol. But the hard work was only beginning. He still faced the consequences of his arrest, DUIs, and crumbling marriage.  

“I understand shame at such a deep level of self-hatred that I was like, this isn’t worth it.” Faced with his crushing circumstances, Morris played Russian roulette with his life, pistol in hand with three in the chamber, for five days in a row. “Every time the gun would click, I remember just feeling like, pissed that it didn’t go off, and at the same time relief.”  

Then, Morris prayed, “‘I’m going to fully surrender to you, God, even though I don’t really trust you. Obviously if you wanted me gone, I’d be gone in so many ways.’ 

“And then I got some help. I started seeking help. I was like, I don’t know where to even begin. And the root of it was a lot of the sexual abuse, and I didn’t know how to talk about that to anyone. 

“That was the beginning part of the journey for me. I can’t do it for my wife. I tried to quit drinking for her for years and it didn’t work. I could white-knuckle sobriety for three or four months and then my circumstances would guide me: I’d have a really bad day or lose a customer or get bucked off or do crappy roping.”  

“And so, I was just like, I’m going to do this for me. She’s going to leave me anyway, especially now. And that’s led me on this beautiful, messy 14-year journey of the question, the most important question that I ever asked myself. ‘Why do I show up the way that I do? Why do I show up socially like this? Why do I show up in intimate relationships the way that I do? Why do I need everyone to like me all the time? Why am my people pleaser? Why do I have to be the life of the party? Why do I need everyone’s acceptance?’ And I think I’ve found the answer, and that is we all truly desire to be unconditionally loved.” 

Morris and his wife were reconciled after two years of separation and added two more sons to their family. After 10 years of healing and living, Morris said he started to “wake up” to a calling to give others hope.  

Asking Questions 

The Wild Courage podcast, started in 2021, was born from Morris’s ability to have hard conversations.  

“I just got really good at asking questions and creating a place for guys to not feel judged and to open up.” The podcast came from the question, “What would I tell my younger self?” 

“To hear somebody be able to articulate verbally what you’ve been feeling inside for a lot of your life is very hopeful. I was like, well, what if I just interviewed guys that have these crazy, gnarly redemption stories?” Hearing how others redeemed their lives can be the inspiration for others. 

“I didn’t want to take this message to the cowboy community,” Morris said. “It was too risky. But God has just had so much grace within this community for this message that it blows me away.” Morris finds that his work has unexpectedly gained the trust and admiration of men widely respected in the western world.  

Notable past guests include Buck Brannaman, Chris Dawson, John Eldredge, Ben Baldus, and many more.  

“I’ll never forget, I was maybe eight or 10 podcasts in, and I got a check for $500 in the mail from a working cowboy that said, ‘These stories are changing my life and my marriage and I just wanted to thank you.’ And that wrecked me,” Morris said. “I know that this guy probably makes less than $2,500 a month.”  

Prompted to steward the money, he started a nonprofit organization. Without concerted fundraising efforts, Wild Courage receives donations enough to provide men and women with the resources to see counselors and therapists. “Especially working cowboys, they don’t have insurance that would cover this sort of thing. It’s expensive. Good counseling starts at like $150 an hour.”  

“These brave men and women that have been on the podcast and openly talked about it, have helped open that door,” he said. “It’s as grassroots as it gets, but we’re helping a lot of men and women and marriages pay to get good help that they need to deal with unprocessed pain and grief and addiction.”  

The podcast has a far-reaching impact.  

“I get letters from guys in prison, young men in prison that connected with stories,” Morris said. He also receives frequent messages from women like, “I know this is for men, but I just want you to know how impactful this has been in helping me understand my husband. I have a different grace for him because he could never articulate what’s going on inside of him.”  

Finally, Morris said, “I had a guy send me a picture of a gun sitting in his lap saying that he was driving up in the mountains to kill himself, and as he was driving, somebody sent him the Wild Courage Podcast, and he said it literally saved his life. And I’ve never really told anyone that before.”  

Lighting Fires 

Another facet of Wild Courage sprung up organically around the same time that Morris launched his podcast.  

In conversation with his friends, they agreed, “Let’s get together and just be honest with each other about what’s going on in our lives – not the pleasantries. We just started letting each other into our lives. And then we started inviting people into that space. And then the Wild Courage fires started happening on a regular basis.”   

Named “fires,” these regular gatherings of men are an opportunity to be authentic with one another in order to find hope and healing. Wild Courage now has nearly 30 fires in the USA and Canada.  

“There’s something that we’ve lost in our society – men sitting around fires, a grandfather and father and son talking about things and sharing stories of, ‘This is what I’ve been through in my life.’ And so we have this great mixture of what I call ‘sages,’ these older gentlemen in their 70s and these young 19- or 20-year-olds. And there’s something that happens around these Wild Courage fires where it’s obviously safe and wisdom is passed from generation to generation. And also, it’s fascinating to see the older men inspired by these younger men and their courage to be vulnerable.” 

For Everyone 

Morris insists that Wild Courage is not a ministry, because people from all walks of life and faith backgrounds are welcome and active within the organization.  

“We have core values and rules: no preaching, no teaching, no advice, and it’s open to everyone. We consecrate and pray before every fire, and we don’t make it weird. We just invite God into the mess.”  

While Morris and many of his team members are Christians and rely on scripture, the purpose of Wild Courage fires and retreats are to meet men where they are.  

“We have agnostic guys that come to every fire. I’ve asked them, ‘Why are you paying money to go to our retreat as an openly agnostic?’ And this made me literally break down and cry. I had three different agnostic guys separately tell me the same thing: ‘We feel loved by you guys and we don’t feel judged.'”  

“I think what’s so powerful about the podcast and this mission is it’s giving permission for men to look objectively at their own lives. When you have Scotty Van Leuven, who in the buckaroo world is very revered, be as vulnerable and honest and open as he is about his struggles and triumphs, it gave every young buckaroo permission to examine their own heart and their own life.” 

Real Men, Real Redemption 

Morris has, and continues to walk with men on the path of redemption. Several have made their stories known on the Wild Courage podcast, including Nick Morgan and Tyler Avent.  

“Before Wild Courage, there was a young man that came to me that had just tried to commit suicide. He still had the bandages on his wrists, and a good friend of mine drove to Arizona and got him and brought him to my barn.” 

“I would say that God gave me this language and showed me how to unconditionally love Nick. And for the first time, he got to hear from me, from anyone, ‘I love you unconditionally. You don’t have to show up any other way.'”  

“Long story short, I got to officiate his wedding last fall. He’s a master farrier now. He’s three months away from being a dad for the first time, and is such a light to everyone he comes in contact with. And he’s part of a fire that started in California in his community, and he’s now doing for others what I got to walk through with him.”  

Tyler Avent, whose wife, Stephanie also appeared on the podcast, redeemed his life and marriage from meth addiction.  

“He has a very successful fire in Texas. He’s just making such a big impact in that community. Because he’s been redeemed, he has compassion and he gets to sit with guys and listen to them and encourage them and give them hope.  

“He’s still on the journey like I am. He’s still getting help and he’s still repairing his marriage. And I mean, I say this all the time, but life is really, really messy and really, really beautiful, and it all happens at the same time.  

“There’s no arrival, just like there’s no finished bridle horse. There’s no such thing. There’s maintenance and you got to keep working at it.”  

“There’s no arrival, just like there’s no finished bridle horse. There’s no such thing.”

– Jeremy Morris  

Changing Generations 

While Morris may be helping one man at a time, one man’s healing may impact their children and grandchildren.  

“I think this is how we change the planet,” he said. “And I know that’s a big thing to say, but what if we modeled something different to our children then that was modeled to us? What if our ceiling is our kids’ floors? How much of an impact can we make, generationally? Because I don’t think it’s about handing down silver bits and flower-carved saddles. When we think about leaving our kids in inheritance or a thousand head of paid-off mother cows, I don’t think that’s what’s going to change our culture. I think it’s one man willing to lay down his pride and say, I need help. I can’t do this anymore.” 

“When we think about leaving our kids in inheritance or a thousand head of paid off mother cows, I don’t think that’s what’s going to change our culture. I think it’s one man willing to lay down his pride and say, ‘I need help.'”

– Jeremy Morris 

The big picture is a healthy family, said Morris.  

The Other Side 

Morris will be 15 years sober in November.  

He said, “I wake up every morning with Isaiah 61 in my throat. God has given me such capacity for compassion for humanity, because I am beauty from ashes. And because of the miracle of my marriage, my wife fully sends me and supports me.”  

His mission was never about building an organization, but loving the people who feel unlovable.  

Today, Wild Courage consists of a board with which Morris makes decisions about the direction of the nonprofit.  

The continent-wide fires are growing, and there is talk of creating women’s fires. Wild Courage is also expanding its resources available on the website, consisting of information for coaches and counselors. 

For more information, see thewildcourage.org.  

The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, 
because the LORD has anointed me; 
He has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted, 
to bind up the brokenhearted, 
To proclaim liberty to the captives, 
release to the prisoners.  
– Isaiah 61:1