Transcripts

Mike Carruthers:
One out of fifteen people, it's estimated, have a secret life or a secret habit that's harmful - drinking, shopping, gambling, pornography.

John Prin:
We're talking about patterns of behavior that we feel are necessary to cover up because if we got caught doing it, we would really feel ashamed and our reputation, our career might all be in jeopardy.

John Prin, author of the book Secret Keeping, led a secret life for 40 years and now counsels others who have hidden addictions.

A person who is bored - this is one of the most common reasons people tell me they do these things, there's nothing else to do. Boredom is a symptom of not knowing your purpose in life, not knowing why you're alive - and so you're going to squander it in ways. And you know that those ways are shameful and that people disapprove of those ways.

Unfortunately, it often takes getting caught to motivate people to give up these behaviors, but John says by then it's often too late, so he recommends the people who are doing these things take a good hard look at the choices they're making.

Instead of saying, "Alright today is an opportunity to do all kinds of things to contribute, you're going to say alright I'm going to go and gamble, I'm going to go and drink, I'm going to go to the strip club." And it's just a very poor choice instead of going for the deep fulfilling satisfaction that comes from making a contribution to someone in your life and the satisfaction or the self-esteem that comes from that.

You can link to John's website from ours: somethingyoushouldknow.net - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.