Who are Secret KeepersSM?

All of us keep a secret now and then, but at least one out of fifteen people are chronic Secret KeepersSM. They are persons whose secrets have power over them and make them misbehave, become sick, or violate others. Persons who are burdened by unhealthy Secret-KeepingSM habits are troubled people who "steal hours" away from their public lives to act out their secret behaviors or passions - sometimes for decades - but who rarely get found out. They are everyday folks who may be well functioning on one level, but in bondage to deeply held secrets on another.

The book describes the 8 mindsets of persons with these Secret-Keeping traits and the relationship between Secret-Keeping and self-defeating behaviors such as alcohol/drug abuse, compulsive gambling, sexual addictions, and eating disorders. It also contains a "Continuum of Secrets" model and numerous examples of Secret-Keeping comprised mainly of the author's own 40-year case history. It offers practical ways to confront the problem and encourages readers in their own healthy pursuit of whole-mindedness.

PACKED WITH USEFUL RESOURCES

-includes charts, bibliography, scripture verses, and
over 60 MetaViews that highlight key lessons and insights

Stolen Hours is written for:

•  People who have secrets that make them unhealthy or unhappy.

•  Practicing Secret Keepers who are looking for solutions to the suffering caused by the double-minded choices of their secret lives.

•  Persons living with a Secret Keeper, frequently burdened and weary, who are seeking encouragement but don't know how to get it.

•  Professionals in the counseling, social work, and pastoral fields who deal with Secret-Keeping behaviors and who will use this book's ideas, theories, and practical advice to help their clients.

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INTRODUCTION

Notes From a Liberated Secret Keeper

From age eleven to fifty-one I lived two parallel lives. Based solely on outward appearances, I looked normal, made a good impression, and was a high-functioning teenager as well as adult. The volcanic drama of my hidden addictive life, however, and the ways it gained control over me, is another story altogether.

My decades as an active Secret Keeper certainly made me ill. Gradually the ways I kept secrets and the resulting pattern of living a double life of lies, cover-ups, and addictions (what I came to call “stealing hours”) subverted any hope of living a fulfilling life. But I’ve discovered I was hardly alone. In time I learned the simple truth:

We are as sick as our secrets.

This inner story that I alone experienced—and how everybody was fooled—is only half of the story, though. The even bigger story is that my life mirrors millions of people’s experience.

Stolen Hours is based on the premise that duality is at the root of everybody’s life. To some extent everyone hides certain secrets and battles duality. Double-mindedness can take root and compulsive patterns, at some time or to some degree, can develop. Secret Keepers are people whose secrets have power over them and cause them to become sick, to misbehave, or to violate others. Behind the masks of sincerity and friendly smiles can be found a far darker side: the sordid, ugly, slippery domain of double-mindedness.

At the root of double-mindedness is addiction—the constant shifting back and forth between two opposing mindsets: “normal on the outside” and “abnormal on the inside.” For me daily life became a burdensome struggle that led to a breakdown, to bottoming out. In Stolen Hours, you will see how my private life remained hidden by the facade that everyone around me observed. Those forty years that I lived in two worlds, ricocheting between public respectability and private temptations, were years I would never choose to repeat, although they taught me invaluable lessons that eventually led me to the joys of whole-mindedness. By my 30s I was addicted to drugs, plagued by an ulcer, in bondage to philandering and pornography, and living a double life haunted by suicidal and homicidal urges. On a chilly, windswept November afternoon in 1977 my wayward life collapsed, and I faced the gut-wrenching moment of ending my life.

As time passed I unearthed the many ways I kept secrets and became sick from this destructive habit. I also discovered how numerous others led secret lives too. In my current professional role as a counselor of addicted clients, I’ve heard numerous stories of Secret-Keeping from clients who tell of their double lives. Unlike some addicts who practice their addictions openly, the clients I counsel are often sabotaged by their hidden double lives, have ended up hating their split reality, and are doing harm to themselves or others. They are among the 20 million Americans who are secretly addicted and still function in their jobs, in their homes, and with their families—yet walk among us every day.

If interested contact John

My counseling work has centered on developing effective therapies to help clients who’ve also “stolen hours” and struggled with secret lives. My passion remains to help as many as possible to identify and redeem their double lives. In short, my journey to wholeness has served to unlock the secrets that have made others sick.

In the following pages of my psychological adventure story, you will discover the myriad challenges one faces on the path to change. In my own case, at times I failed, at times I triumphed. Eventually I discovered the main underlying problem that had so disabled me for decades and prevented me from fulfilling my life’s destiny: my habit of keeping secrets. Since then I have relied on divine help as a way out and devoted my waking efforts to assisting everyone I meet to renounce the detours, deceptions, and dead ends of Secret-Keeping, and to live the best life they can live. Stolen Hours is meant to make this motivating knowledge available to millions more than I can serve personally.

Turn the page and encounter the ways secrets overtook and overwhelmed me, then explore the eight mindsets of a Secret Keeper which characterize the 1-in-15 people who actively live double lives. You will also explore how the categories of simple secrets, silent secrets, secret keepingSM, and crime interrelate and lead to new awareness. There’s even a questionnaire to help you determine your personal level of Secret-Keeping. Most important, you will experience how God’s mighty love transformed a fellow mortal’s hurt and hate into a life of healing and wholeness—and can do the same for you and millions more.

The simple truth? We are as sick as our secrets…but there’s hope!

John Howard Prin, BA, LADC
Licensed Alcohol & Drug Counselor

Table of Contents

PART 1

Introduction:

Notes from a Liberated Secret Keeper

Chapter 1:

Tender Roots, Twisted

Chapter 2:

Innocence Lost

Chapter 3:

Sanity Regained

Chapter 4:

Secrets Shared

Chapter 5:

Death’s Door

Chapter 6:

Breaking Free Away From Home

Chapter 7:

Hollywood or Bust

Chapter 8:

The Marriage Circle

Chapter 9:

Despair

Chapter 10:

A Wheat Field in Nebraska

PART 2

Chapter 11:

Holy in Hollywood

Chapter 12:

Marching to a New Drummer

Chapter 13:

Minneapolis Revisited

Chapter 14:

Homecoming

Chapter 15:

Sanity on Trial

Chapter 16:

Quantum Leaps, Forward and Back

Chapter 17:

Marriage Vows on Trial

Chapter 18:

Bachelor on the Rocks

Chapter 19:

Bill W.’s Friend

Chapter 20:

United and Whole

Epilogue:

Liberation

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