Roadmap to Lifelong Recovery: Interview with John Prin

Yesterday I met with long time friend and author John Prin to talk about books, writing, life and his newly released The Roadmap to Lifelong Recovery: Tested Strategies to Overcome Addiction and Avoid Relapse.

John and his wife Susie are residents of Edina, Minnesota, where John went to high school. I met John in a writer’s group in 1982 or '83. When I first became serious about my own writing career, John helped me learn the ropes, served as somewhat of a mentor and a friend. John is founder of True You Recovery, a business devoted to helping people overcome addictions. He and his twin brother Dave also teach courses on happiness.

Their father was a popular 1950’s Twin Cities musician who hosted or performed on several Minneapolis TV shows on WCCO including the very popular Uncle Toby’s Talent Hour, a 90 minute Saturday morning variety show. The show featured 4th graders to high school students in a format that was a cross between Ed Sullivan and Art Linkletter’s kids program.

Our interview took place at Hinckley’s Grand Casino, a midpoint between the Twin Cities where John resides, and my place here outside Duluth. The time flew fast, as it always does when friends reunite. Here below I’ve transcribed the formal part of our discussion.

enny: How old were you when people first noticed you had an aptitude for writing?
JP: I would say a senior in high school. I had the most amazing lit teacher… Everett Anderson… he drew it out of me like water. Robin Williams type of teacher (Dead Poets Society) Every day a circus… everybody had to stand up and recite…. Chaucer, Shakespeare, a sonnet…. A fantastic teacher. I think it was many years later when people recognized I had a talent…. Mid-forties … Started to publish essays and short articles, personal articles of which I have published ten or twenty.

enny: Who or what was the biggest influence in pushing you into a writing career?
JP: Ev Anderson, unquestionably. Some of the really good movies of the day… I would think, “Who writes this stuff?” I wish I could say it was one great novelist but it wasn’t.

enny: How did you become interested in addiction counselling?
JP: Of course I was addicted myself. I drank for thirty years, and for the last fifteen years I drank I was addicted and I had to hide it. I came to a spiritual crisis in my life where I would have to die with it or live without it. It was not blocking God’s love toward me, but was blocking my openness to God. Without AA I couldn’t stop on my own. The first word in AA is WE. Went from I-solated drinker to the community of people who have found sobriety. In finding sobriety through AA, which happened immediately, my openness to God and all that came with it occurred. Gratitude, fulfillment, growth, satisfaction… so I know I am finally on the path I am supposed to be on in my life.

As a professional I had been sober for two years and a friend asked about going into counseling, … and got the message that this is for me, and within a month I was enrolled in professional training to become an addiction counselling.

enny: Your first two books were Stolen Hours and Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions. Which was the hardest to write and why?
JP: I would say my second book, Secret Keeping. Does writing one book help you write the next? Only slightly. Each book is different. The hard work was taking Secret Keeping, book two, and doing all the research concerned. I read over 1000 articles on secret keeping, power differentials, etc. scientific literature… synthesis of many points of view from philosophy to science to psychology to spirituality…. It was a much more complex tapestry.

enny: Any advice you would give to others who decide to leave their job to pursue their passion?
JP: Write the book first and get to the final page before you quit your job. Getting the book written and re-written and edited is only half the work. Getting people to read it is the other half of the work. Getting people to sit down and read it, or make them aware it is there… You have to be involved in both parts. So for most of us it's two jobs… one 9-5 job to make money to pay the bills and then the second job as a writer.

Also, you have to find the format that really works for you. I worked too many years in the screen play format that was not conducive to my kind of writing. For me what works best is an inner narrative style.

enny: To whom or what do you attribute your intense, above average ambition?
JP: First, I agree with you that I am above average when it comes to ambition. The first influence was my father, indirectly. Seeing his influence on peoples’ lives as an entertainer blew my mind. We couldn’t go anywhere in Minneapolis without people coming up to him and saying “Oh I loved when you played that song” or things like that. I saw early on the impact he made on the masses.

Then, I had four near death, out of body experiences by the time I was 24. When you have these out of body experiences, three in water - lakes or the ocean - one was a car accident... None of these were planned; all completely unanticipated. You realize you’re alive for a reason. These were spiritual experiences. The first thing you know is that you are not your body. You are way more than your body. When it happens four times in the space of fifteen years, there’s a reason you’re back. It’s a big reason.

So the question is, "What is the reason?" I floundered. It’s trial and error. You have to discover it. I went through a process, very challenging… up through my forties, perhaps into my fifties. First, I thought a great novel. Then a great movie script. And then it came to me, to write the story of my life, and understand the issues there inside me. Self pity, depression, despair… How I came to experience a personal Christianity, sobriety and integrity. I don’t have to lie any more or where the mask any more.

(My life goal today is) to make the largest contribution possible to the most people to help their lives become the most they can be.

enny: You went to Hollywood for ten years when you were young and tried to make it as a screen writer. Do you still have a desire to make films? What would be your first?
JP: Yes and no. The no part is, I do not want to be the director. I would want only to be indirectly involved. One reason is the Hollywood mindset which is contaminated and corrupt.
There are some film projects (I've developed) which would be of help to a mass audience. I still believe Cora’s Rhapsody would be such a project. It's an epic struggle and triumph of the human spirit….

The one question I ask people: If you were to wake up tomorrow morning and when you opened your eyes you had ten billion dollars, what would you do for the rest of your life? If I had that, I would do Cora’s Rhapsody and some other projects. A collaborative effort with talented people… and write my novel.

enny: Isn’t some secret keeping healthy when kids are developing? How would you differentiate between healthy secrets and toxic secrets?
JP: First of all, keeping a secret is essential to becoming a human being. I have to be able to keep information to myself to protect others, or I am not a human being.

What makes a secret toxic is when you have to do it in the darkness, sneak away, to relieve something that is unresolvable.

There is at least one person here in this casino, for example, who is here hoping not to run into anyone they know, who hopes no one will see them… There is a behavioral aspect to a toxic secret that you conceal… There’s an element of criminal thinking in toxic secrets. And as soon as you act on toxic secrets you are acting against who you were meant to be, against life itself.

enny: Your third and latest book is called Roadmap to Lifelong Recovery. What was the impetus behind this book and how does it differ from the others?
JP: People can get sober from gambling, alcoholism, drugs, but staying sober is the true challenge. Almost anyone can go on a diet for sixty or ninety days and lose a lot of pounds, but can they maintain a lifestyle where they are disciplined?

enny: I notice that the diagram on the cover is a map of the U.S. and the road map goes from the West Coast to the East Coast. Was this deliberate? Or just something that happened?
JP: It’s only because we read from left to right. The concept is not because we go from the west to the east… Life is a journey with deadends, detours or ditches. The more we avoid deadends, detours and ditches, the less likely we will relapse.

Why do people with diabetes relapse? They don’t follow directions. They know what they have to do. It’s a journey that takes time… you have to determine where you want to go. The southern route, middle route, northern route… You have to plan, map out your roadmap.

John Prin and his brother Dave have been teaching courses on happiness.

JP: I’ve been sober 12 and a half years. The one thing I have learned most is to accept the present moment for being what it is. When I do not, I end up in a negative state that I have put myself in. That puts me at odds with the moment and others. That’s where stress comes from. That’s where anger comes from.