Al Mooney Archives – Page 3 of 3

A New Book About the Mooneys: “When Two Loves Collide”

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When Two Loves Collide, the story of how Dr. Al Mooney’s parents, Dot and John Mooney, fought addiction and alcoholism and went on to found Willingway Hospital, was released in April 2013.

From the cover: Passion and addiction devastate the lives of a heroic surgeon and his wife until a prison miracle restores their love and faith.

Author William G. Borchert is an Emmy nominated screenwriter who wrote the movies “My Name Is Bill W.,” starring James Garner and James Woods, and “When Love Is Not Enough,” starring Winona Ryder and Barry Pepper. He has also written a number of books, including The Lois Wilson Story: When Love Is Not Enough.

What others are saying… “There are few people in the recovery movement who have done more to help alcoholics and drug addicts than Dr. John Mooney and his lovely wife, Dot Mooney. After finding sobriety for … Read more...

Cold and Flu Care For People in Recovery

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~ by Al J. Mooney, MD ~

People in recovery need to avoid taking medication for cold and flu symptoms. Try these ideas for a recovery-safe way to manage your symptoms. These tips were first developed by my mother, Dot Mooney. Grandma Dot, as everyone called her, and my father, John Mooney, MD, were the co-founders of Willingway Hospital. Recovery safe flu remedy | The Recovery Book

1. Get Your Rest Healing from any illness requires your body to call on reserves. Continuing with your normal activities may be possible and desirable when symptoms are minor and risks are low. When symptoms become more severe or the risks of contagion to others with health risk is possible, it may be more important to stick close to home. Chilling out and making sure you get the rest you need will be helpful.

2. Drink Plenty of Fluids Drink plenty of fluids. Make sure they are non-caffeinated so you … Read more...

Staying Sober and Happy Through the Holidays

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Are the holidays a time of stress for you? How do you deal with it? How do you avoid temptation?

Below are some ideas from Dr. Al (edited from the first edition of The Recovery Book), as well as some from Bill Borchert, screenwriter and author of “My Name is Bill W.” and “When Love is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story.” Bill is a longtime friend of Dr. Al and Willingway.

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From The Recovery Book…

For recovering people (and for millions of others whose lives are out of sync), holidays are often times of tension, sadness, and depression. They are also a time when temptations to jump off the wagon seem to multiply. Some of the following tips may help you beat back the blues:

Keep your expectations realistic, so you don’t set yourself up for an emotional letdown. Just because you’re sober doesn’t mean

Reality TV Comes to The Recovery Book

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~ by Howard Eisenberg ~

Well, not exactly. That’s just a teaser headline to get you to read the next few paragraphs.

There’ll be no TV, but plenty of sobriety reality in The Recovery Book revise we’re working on, as readers of the first book become contributors to the second. How will that work? Here’s a for-instance.

Jennifer B., fresh out of recovery at Willingway and a long stay at its women’s halfway house, needed surgery on both hips and her spine. What she – and Dr. Al – feared most was that an anesthesiologist (or hospital RNs) unfamiliar with addiction recovery would inadvertently throw her into relapse by administering the very drugs that had addicted her in the first place.

As Dr. Al tells people in recovery, “No matter how far along in recovery you are, having surgery means you are back in the Red Zone, and that means … Read more...

How The Recovery Book (1st ed.) Was Born

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~ by Howard Eisenberg ~

It could be said (so I’ll say it) that in 1991 when my late (and amazing) wife Arlene and I visited Willingway Hospital in Statesboro, Georgia, for the first time that The Recovery Book was an accident waiting to happen. But at the time, we sure didn’t expect it to happen.

We were there to write a magazine piece about Dr. John Mooney, one of those rare MDs who was willing to admit that he was an addict and an alcoholic. Not that he drank or drugged anymore. Yes, he’d been locked up for a couple of years in Lexington Prison when the government figured out he’d been writing an army’s worth of drug Rx’s for his personal use. But that had been a dozen years earlier, and even when he was drinking, patients said they’d rather be operated on by Dr. John than any … Read more...