(This goes a bit past my take on the OP's question, but it was the only way I could paint the picture of how something I felt so difficult became so easy in an instant...)
The last six months of my drinking saw me drowning not just a sea of alcohol but a sea of lies.
Before I lost the will to keep it mentally sorted, I used to joke to myself that I needed a spreadsheet to keep track of who knew/thought what about me. I had quit (and let people know about it) and took up again (and let people know about it) so many times and around so many different people (though the bulk of my drinking was done alone) that I had no idea who at any given point thought I was on or off the wagon, or for how long either way. But at the end, I knew that my immediate family thought I was sober, and it was an absolute lie. It was one that I had been telling for months, ever since I got arrested for my DWI. I called my parents after getting out of jail at 4AM, still in terror over what had (and what could have) happened, and I meant it with every ounce of my being -- to them and myself -- when I said that I was done. Absolutely done drinking.
I walked back from the pay phone (my phone had been lost at some point during the arrest) to my apartment and drank until the sun came up.
My dad came out to TX from the northeast to help me with the legal stuff. He was at least glad I wasn't drinking anymore. I was drunk the whole time.
Over the next few months as I got sicker and sicker, my one remaining friend kept more or less pleading with me to let them know. He knew they would understand. I couldn't fathom it. It was beyond hard -- I saw it as impossible. They would die of sadness. I would somehow become a truly depraved liar -- as if I wasn't depraved in every sense already.
When the moment finally came where I could not go on the way I was one moment longer, when I had been finally beaten in every conceivable way, I remember spending a few moments in what felt like catatonia. Then, in what seemed like an instant, everything changed. The only way I can describe it was it was like the scene in The Matrix (and imitated/paid homage to in movies and TV shows since) where they're in the "loading room". Like the slate of my existence was erased and became blank. A moment, I guess, of clarity. I got up off of the floor, and remembered where weeks earlier I had seen in passing the number of a local detox/rehab. They got called. Then, my parents.
They were the two easiest phone calls I have ever made.
I know this dark moment of the soul doesn't apply to everyone. But the takeaway is that the acceptance and love of my family was there before that moment, and it was probably the best call they could have got. I also learned that the people you are in most fear of opening up to usually always already know the deal -- at the depths of our addicted secrecy our reality is plain as day to those who truly love us.
Today, who knows and who doesn't just isn't a big deal to me. I mean, even casual acquaintances knew I was a drinker. Others knew I was a drunk. Some others knew I was a full-blown alcoholic. They knew the nightmare. All anyone who I'm open with today knows of -- even if they get the whole sordid backstory -- is my sobriety. Which instead of the nightmare is the dream. And what they know when I tell them that I am a recovered alcoholic is that it came true. And I never know when someone who learns my deal -- whether intentionally or in passing, or in or out of the AA program -- will hear the very thing they needed to get hope or help for themselves or someone they're close to.
Chris