Addicted to Stealing: Inside a Shoplifter's Mind

July 10, 2007— -- This story originally aired on October 6, 2005.

In 2002, Paula Paine seemed to be on top of the world. She was the toast of the Houston social scene…and with good reason.

She was beautiful and brilliant -- a former model who had worked three years at the White House. Her husband, Jeff, was a successful Houston businessman who adored her. "She was a superstar as far as I was concerned," he said.

They were starting a family, with three small children and a fancy house in one of Houston's toniest neighborhoods. It should have been the happiest time of Paine's life. But on the inside, she was in turmoil. She was living a double life.

Whenever Paine had a difficult day, she turned to a shameful habit. It was not drugs or alcohol or another man. To make herself feel better, she shoplifted.

There was no obvious reason why Paine would do so: She had plenty of money, and an arrest would tarnish her carefully polished public image.

Yet she continued…until she was caught doing something so humiliating that it shoved her right out of the Houston social scene.

Paine's tale is not entirely unfamiliar. For example, after actress Winona Ryder was arrested for shoplifting at the Saks in Beverly Hills in 2001, many asked what could drive a wealthy actress to risk it all for goods she could clearly afford.

More recently, media reports revealed that Jennifer Wilbanks, the "Runaway Bride," was arrested three times for shoplifting – on each occasion for items valued at less than $100.

Psychiatrists are finding new scientific evidence that shoplifting, like gambling or liquor, can truly be an addiction: a repetitive, compulsive and extraordinarily self-destructive behavior.

"They look the same as you and I, and they will live their lives morally and legally in every other aspect," said Jon Grant, a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota. But, he added, their brains are different.

Grant, who has studied kleptomania for almost nine years years, showed "Primetime" two pictures that demonstrate how the brains of kleptomaniacs differ from the normal brain.

At the National Society for Shoplifting Prevention Web site, you can fill out a profile to see if you are potentially a "shoplifting addict" and need to seek treatment.

Shopliftersanonymous.com
Get online support and find out if there is a support group near you.

Shopliftersrecovery.com
A professional treatment program for problem stealing behavior.