DEAR ABBY: I need help! I am a 50-plus-year-old, married, well-educated woman. I am also a kleptomaniac and I’m not proud of it. It started a few years back when I accidentally left an item in my shopping cart. Since then, I have found it easy to take things — shoes, makeup, jewelry, clothing.

I am out of control. I know it’s wrong. I tell myself, “That’s it! I will not steal.” Then I go and do it again. I want to stop this madness within myself, but I can’t tell anyone. Please help me. — TAKING WHAT’S NOT MINE IN TENNESSEE

DEAR TAKING: Stopping this “madness within yourself” on your own obviously isn’t working. Embarrassing as it may be, the time has come to admit to someone who is qualified to help you that you need it. Your doctor or medical insurance company may be able to refer you to a licensed psychotherapist while keeping the matter confidential. Please don’t wait to reach out. 

DEAR ABBY: I went to dinner with a friend who had told me a couple of years ago that he was an alcoholic and had gone into rehab. Since that time, I have had doubts about his sobriety due to his serious family problems and his subsequent statement to me that, after one year of therapy, he decided he “was not an alcoholic.”

When we had dinner recently, I ordered a glass of wine, and he ordered his usual Diet Coke. At the end of dinner, I went to the restroom and on my way back I saw him take a couple of sips of my leftover wine. When I returned to the table, I said nothing. I’m not sure if that was the right thing to do. If not, what should I have said to witnessing an alcoholic have a drink? —  SURPRISED IN NEW YORK

DEAR SURPRISED: At the end of therapy, a problem drinker does not announce that he is not an alcoholic. Your friend may be an alcoholic in recovery, but he still is one. It appears from your letter that his sobriety may be a bit wobbly. If the two of you are very close friends, you could have told him you saw what he did. If you are not, then you were right to remain silent because it wouldn’t have been helpful.

DEAR ABBY: My son was conceived using donor sperm. I never told him because his deceased father didn’t want him to know he wasn’t his biological father, and they loved each other dearly.

My son, now in his 30s, has done the DNA thing and is now questioning why he’s 60% Jewish when that isn’t in either family. I’m torn about whether I should tell him. I feel awful for not telling him as a child. I’m afraid this could be too big a shock for him. — WORRIED MOM IN NEVADA

DEAR WORRIED MOM: “Children” are more resilient than we sometimes think. You should not leave this world with this unfinished business. Your son deserves to know that because your husband felt that revealing that you needed artificial insemination to conceive would make him seem less manly, you couldn’t disclose this important information while he was living. How sad is that, because it wouldn’t have made him less loved or less of a role model. 

(Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or P.O. Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.)