What is the good in confiding your weakness for booze to a roomful of people who are sworn not to utter a word of it to the outside world? How does that help when you’re at an office party and your boss insists you toast this month’s sales figures with a glass of cold beer? Your boss isn’t psychic.

When I decided to quit drinking, and when I realized that AA wasn’t for me, I knew I’d have to find a route to sobriety that was as public as possible. I knew that the only way I’d be able to reverse my reputation as a boozer would be to tell the whole world—or at least the part of the world I lived in—that I was quitting. … The key is for people you encounter on a day-to-day basis to be aware that you have a problem and are trying to fix it. Those people—not a group of well-meaning strangers in AA—are the ones who will be your greatest allies in quitting.

Carr previously wrote about his strategy for The Fix. Kevin Gray examines the success rate of AA and finds that others treatments, such as cognitive behavioral therapy, are often just as effective.