Hi and welcome! I'm new here too!
We certainly have many similarities in our history with alcohol. I hid it so well for so many years... I felt like I was a double agent of sorts leading two different lives I was trying to keep separate. This is both odd and slightly humorous, but as I write this I can hear the theme to Secret Agent Man. "There's a man who leads a life of danger. To everyone he meets he stays a stranger" In so many ways that was me; I was toying with something dangerous in solitude and, try as I might (and boy have I tried a number of times) I couldn't remain on the sober. So I hid it and hid that part of me. I was a stranger to a lot of people. I consider myself a private person, but when such a large part of me was hidden. I am talking about both the act of drinking and the damage that it is doing within. I hid that pain it was causing. When I finally told people, those closest to me, it was as if I said I was going to Mars. When I admitted I had a problem and was an alcoholic I felt even more alone. I needed to reach out... but the guilt I felt and the reaction I received... it wasn't what I wanted or needed. There is such a stigmatism with alcoholism. My family and close friends assumed that if I wasn't passed out on some park bench or getting arrested for some alcohol induced crime, that I wasn't an alcoholic.
I digress as always!
Welcome! & know you're not alone!