Al J. Mooney - The Recovery Book: Answers to All Your Questions About Addiction and Alcoholism and Finding Health and Happiness in Sobriety

Welcome to Recovery

Your Recovery Plan

Stop: Activate Your Recovery

Committing to Recovery

The Many Roads to a Lifetime of Sobriety

A Closer Look: Detox and Withdrawal

A Closer Look: Inpatient Treatment

A Closer Look: AA and Other 12-Step Fellowships

A Closer Look: 12-Step Programs and You

First Steps: Living in Sobriety and Preventing Relapse

First Steps: Relationships, Recreation, and Socializing in the Red Zone

First Steps: Education, Work, and Finances in the Red Zone

Your Physical Health in the Red Zone

Your Mental Health in the Red Zone

For Teens and Young Adults in Recovery

Proceed with Caution: Build Your Life

Your Recovery Program in the Yellow Zone

Rebuilding Your Life: Relationships, Recreation, and Socializing in the Yellow Zone

Rebuilding Your Life: Education, Work, and Finances in the Yellow Zone

Your Health in the Yellow Zone

Go: Celebrate Your Life

Your Recovery Program in the Green Zone

Raising Substance-Free Kids

Your Health in the Green Zone

Time to Quit Smoking

For Family and Friends

As anyone in recovery from alcohol or other drug abuse knows, the recovery community is comprised of a huge group of incredibly diverse people from all walks of life who live in all corners of the world. The only things most of us have in common are our addiction, our recovery, and our desire to keep the latter. This alone makes us, as large and varied as we are, one of the most tight-knit groups of people known to mankind. When we find something goodsuch as the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymoussomething that speaks to us, something we get, we dont tend to keep it a secret. Step 12 tells us that if we want to keep what we have, we need to give it away. And so we share. We share our best recovery resources with our fellow travelers, with other friends of Bill, and with anyone who will listen. This leads to the fact that many of us in the recovery community rely on the same trusted resources to pull us out of a recovery rut by inspiring, motivating, educating, illuminating, or doing whatever it takes to keep us on the recovery path. And this, my friend, is how recovery classicsliterature no person in recovery would want to be withoutare born.

The Recovery Book falls into the recovery classic category. First published in 1992, this useful book gradually wound its way through recovery circles, including mine. When I was in early recovery, I bought The Recovery Book on a friends advice. At the time, I read whatever recovery material I could get my hands on. I needed to absorb what people like methose who had gone before mewent through, what they did to stay in recovery, what they understood recovery to be. I absorbed this information until it became mineuntil I could define my unique needs and shape my own recovery. All of this information is based on a universal code, a universal 12-step message that works for each of us individually, despite how different each of us is.

As much as I was reading at the time, The Recovery Book stood out. First, it answered most of my questions as a newcomer, but it also showed me there was a way out of addiction, which gave me something even more important than answers to all my questions. It gave me hope.

The second edition of The Recovery Book holds all of its original charm and substance with some new and exciting updates. Dr. Als Recovery Zone System in particular is worth mentioning for how it uses color to categorize three zones of recovery. Readers, especially those who are visual learners, will quickly learn an important and often underestimated fact: Recovery is a process. I dont know of anyone who stops drinking or using and finds that life is suddenly a bowl of cherries. It takes work, and we build on our progress until we reach the next zone, or higher level of being. The Recovery Zone System spells out what needs to happen before we reach the next zoneand makes it crystal clear that we sometimes take two steps back before going forward. Dr. Al doesnt predict our path for us, but, by showing us the process, he takes our hand and guides us through it, giving us an indication of what to expect and, all the while, ensuring us that we are not alonemillions of others have experienced the same ups and downs on the road called recovery.

I have enormous respect for my dear friend Dr. Al Mooney. I first met Dr. Al at a conference, years after I had read his book. We exchanged pleasantries, and I told him what his book had meant to me. Now, Dr. Al and I are good friends, and to this day, I find Dr. Als book to be an invaluable resource for myself and my patients at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, California. Dr. Als engaging mind and traditional yet creative approach to 12-Step abstinence-based recovery are exemplary. I feel honored to be part of the second edition of this recovery classic, which promises newcomers and old-timers alike a wealth of solid information about recovery, as well as new information based on recent science regarding the disease of addiction and changing technologies.

If youve read this far, The Recovery Book is already in your hands. Dont put it aside. Read it. Use it. It can help guide you step by step out of the gloom of addiction hell into the bright light of the world of recovery.

Harry Haroutunian, M.D.

Physician Director, Professional and Residential Programs, the Betty Ford Center; Author, Being Sober: A Step-by-Step Guide to Getting To, Getting Through, and Living in Recovery

My name is Al Mooney, and Im not an alcoholic or addict, but many others in my family aremy parents; my brothers, Jimmy and Bobby; and our sister, Carol Lind. Drinking and using drugs are more than just a challenging medical problem to me. Theyre personal. Very personal.

When I was growing up in Statesboro, Georgia, alcohol and drugs were in charge of our family. My father, John Mooney, was a wonderful physicianwho drank at night and used pills during the day. My mother, Dot Mooney, was doing her best to be a good mom, but she popped codeine for her hangover headaches, tranquilizers for depression, and barbiturates so she could sleep.

One night in our living room, my father went into a convulsion from an overdose. That started him on a series of visits to psychiatric hospitals to dry out. Each time my mother tried to cover up his absence by telling us kidsand his patientsthat he was at a medical conference. Meanwhile, she was doing her best to cover up her own drinking and drug use. She would drive us to Sunday school every week, and then hide in the back of the room so no one could smell the liquor on her breath.

Like so many first-born children of alcoholic/addict parents, I felt I had no choice but to do what I could to keep the family goinggetting the kids up for school in the morning, alerting Mom when the car she was driving was drifting off the road, covering up for Dads absences. At the age of ten, I should have been just a kid playing in the backyard, but that wasnt the way my family worked.

It all finally turned around when my father, who had written himself hundreds of phony prescriptions, was sent to prison for six months. It was a big wake-up call for him, as well as a blessing. With the help of an AA member who visited him there, by the time he was released from prison, he was finally ready for sobriety.