I told my family after 30 days and by the end of the first year I had told everybody I cared about how bad it had gotten at the end and what I was doing to prevent it from getting that bad again. I needed to do this. I spent way too many years pretending to be things I wasn't and I needed for there to be only one of me - the recovering alcoholic.
I think this disease ( problem/issue/insert your word of choice here) cannot survive in the light of truth and honesty, it needs half-truths and outright lies in order to flourish.