Customer Reviews

Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions

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John Prin's second book is not just for persons with secret addictions, but for everyone who cares about our fellow human beings and wants to learn more about us. We can all recognize someone in this book, whether it's a friend, family member or a public figure. The book is very readable and moves along swiftly, enriched by the many detailed personal stories of secret keepers. A very powerful part of this book is John Prin's sharing of his own personal 30-year experience of secret keeping and his recovery.

The book is divided into 2 sections: "Problems and Consequences" in which the author explains the "degrees" of Secret Keeping (from benign to malignant), and "Solutions and Rewards" in which he offers 6 stages to successful recovery, with checklists and exercises to work through. In addition, this book has a strong feeling of hope, reassurance, patience, and encouragement along with a very welcome spiritual element.

Secret Keeping by John Prin is a latest clinical study of the origins, toxicity and healing of the secret keeping that warp and suffocate human experience. Prin takes his previous work further to suggest the myriad forces that tempt and drive the secret keeper, and then he shows the way out. With many illustrations, stories, graphics and current scholarship this engaging book is easily readable and highly useful. Our toxic secrets really do strangle us all, but Prin shows a way to new life.

"Excitement... pleasure... delight." To varying degrees, we all crave these qualities in our lives, and why not? Usually they serve to improve our tenor of our days.

However, when our craving for excitement comes only from 'the excitement of breaking a rule'... and when our pleasures are chiefly derived from illicit or destructive acts... ... and when our delight in these activities comes only in the fact of 'getting away with it'.... then we're in big trouble, Bubba, whether we admit it or not.

Mr. Prin hones in on the true causes of addiction, destructive behavior and self-loathing. In SECRET KEEPING, Prin offers readers a deeply moving tale of a previously skewed, unhappy life (Prin's personal autobiography, along with other case histories) on the one hand... and a riveting, inspiring 'how-to guide' on turning one's life around-yours, mine, anyone's-on the other.

Prin's autobiographical segments keep the reader riveted, wondering what will happen next. His tried-and-true 'how-to' chapters-how to move from a life of dysfunction and unhappiness to one of authenticity and self-worth-are streamlined, succinct, and easy to understand.

SECRET KEEPING guides readers along a six-step path on the continuum of dysfunction and addition to wholeness and recovery, helping them to...

° Surrender secret keeping habits and attitudes

° Accept one's duality and start understanding it

° Prepare to state the true facts about one's life

° Disclose secrets (true facts) to somebody

° Trust in a new world view, and to

° Account for present and future behavior

Prin also provides 'Three Rs' to help motivate readers to improve their lives, wherein...

° Realistic thoughts replace distorted thoughts

° Positive feelings are restored, and

° One is able to reconnect with one's spirituality.

Prin's latest book can help anyone along the seeker's path to finally become the whole-minded individual all of us wish to be. SECRET KEEPING is fine, fresh, and written in a manner that keeps the reader turning pages, far into the night.

* * *

I found this to be a challenging resource to help unravel deep-seated issues. I would encourage anyone who struggles to find useful tools to seriously look at this book.

Prin has the background and experience to knowledgeably help those with secret addictions and to inform their friends and families. His case studies are varied and well-presented. But the best is that he provides tools and concrete steps for working back to an honest and transparent lifestyle as well as real accountability. This is a much-needed book for our day and age where isolation is a major problem, and addictions so easy to hide.

I waited with anticipation to read John Prin's most recent book "Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions" after enjoying his last book "Stolen Hours." I'd highly recommend both as companion pieces. His latest book has something for everyone. It's amazing that in this current world of "tell all" we are living more secrets than ever. Mr. Prin doesn't throw the baby out with the bathwater by bashing all forms of secrets; on the contrary, he meticulously outlines the origins of secret keeping and ably distinguishes helpful and necessary ones from those that become chronic, destructive, and addictive.

Mr. Prin's book kept me interested with its variety of angles. He interviews tales from his own life with the secret lives of other people both famous and in the headlines as well as the friend/family/or neigbhor next door. I saw myself in a lot of these scenarios--especially the story of the recovering shoplifting addict--something I've been in recovery from since 1990--but prior to that, I had led a secret life.

This book also has great theories outlined and means to overcome secret lives, including hands-on exercises right in the book. With the New Year upon us, I'd encourage anyone interested in the topic of secrets to read this book. It will change your life for the better or, at least, help you help someone in need of an "honesty overhaul."

John Prin's Secret Keeping brings a message of hope and a blueprint for recovery for those caught in the web of harmful secret keeping. Through profoundly moving personal stories of actual secret keepers (as well as his own riveting autobiography), Prin details the innocent beginnings of secret keeping, the deceptive behaviors that incubate and encourage these destructive behaviors, and the downward spiral to despair and shame experienced by the individual. Prin gives us a book for everyone -- whether we personally suffer from hidden secrets or we know of others in our families, communities and work environments. The book is wonderfully readable and full of scholarly references, inspirational prose and practical tips. A must-read for those working in the fields of human potential and recovery, and a wonderful contribution to the health and healing of our planet! Chris Naylor, MA, B.Better Success Coaching and Consulting, LLC

There's an Old Testament proverb that says "It's better to meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly." The meaning of the proverb offers insight about the inevitable mortification that occurs when dark secrets have been revealed. For me, a lifetime of observation (whether reading the newspapers or watching family and friends) has shown that marriage dissolutions, madness and all manner of mayhem can occur when a person has been snared in the web of secret keeping.

John Prin's Secret Keeping is a sensitive treatment of disturbing realities. The book assembles many decades of insights into a compact volume that details the myriad ways secret keepers damage themselves and the ones they love and offers them hope, a way out of the labyrinth.

Secret lives and double lives are nothing new. The famous account of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is more than just a literary fiction. It is a metaphor for many unhappy men and women whose complex lives become unmanageable due to their divided selves.

The power of this book comes from its interweaving of insights and concepts with personal stories and the accounts of many others. For Prin, his life quest has been the pursuit of wholeness so that in turn he might help others overcome their own splintered, self-frustrating experiences. The power of his writing comes from having been on the battlefield himself. His is not merely an academic look from an ivory tower.

Prin's personal story reminds me of Plato's man in the cave, who escapes from the shadows and discovers a whole world out there of which the cave's shackled inhabitants have no inkling. It has been his aim to help others know freedom from the chains of addiction and hidden habits.

Even if you are not personally debilitated by "secret keeping" per se, the second half of Prin's book brings many useful tools for helping you achieve a more satisfying, productive and purposeful life. For example, chapter 10 is about motivation. Why do so many intelligent, talented people seem to drift through life with little personal satisfaction? This chapter on motivation can help anyone.

This book is not theoretical mumbo jumbo. Prin has assembled tools that offer practical help for people who are serious about recovery.

There is a scene in the Woody Allen movie Zelig in which Zelig, under psychoanalysis or in a hypnotic state, confesses his shame at having not read the book Moby Dick. It is a humorous line, but deep with meaning, for who among us has not been shamed at one time or another about being ignorant in an area that many peers feel to be "common experience." When we play roles for fear of being ourselves, we harbor a secret self that longs for acceptance, fears rejection. In basic ways, secret keeping hurts all of us. What each of us needs is the peace and joy of freedom.

Among many books dealing with addictions, "Secret Keeing" is a notch above. It provides concerte and practical advice in a very straight-forward manner. It is compassionate and yet not bashful all about confronting these all-too-common human prediciments. The messages are helpful and realistic. As a graduate school professor, I have read and written many self-help books. This one stands out in a field of its own.

I am not a secret keeper but I know people who are or have been. I found this to be such an informative book to learn where this behavior comes from and what it can lead to.

The stories of "real secret keepers" were fascinating and also sad and also encouraging!

What a great tool for someone who is a secret keeper. To read about others who have triumphed and to be given concrete instructions on what they can do to help themselves must be invaluable.

This would be a good book for a book club to discuss.