For years I’d told myself I wasn’t an alcoholic. I never drank alone. I didn’t wake up with fierce cravings, and sometimes I went for one or two days without drinking. A need to drink all day, every day, was never my problem. My problem was that once I had a drink — whether it was at 7 p.m. or 9 a.m. — I couldn’t stop until my body shut down and I passed out in a pile on the floor. I still had plenty of friends and still managed to hold down a job, but my relationship with alcohol was very obviously different from most people’s. I was an alcoholic. As of Saturday, the counter on my website says ‘878 days.’ Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I had my last alcoholic drink. Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I declared — very publicly — that my drinking had passed the point where it was funny, crazy or even merely dangerous. In fact, my addiction to alcohol had reached a stage where it was highly likely to kill me.

Enough was enough. So I decided to quit. But I didn’t do it in the typical way.

For one thing, I didn’t go to Alcoholics Anonymous. Not a single meeting. I have several friends who attend AA and have found it to be a highly effective way to quit. I have plenty of other friends who attend AA meetings every morning and are blind drunk every night. I almost attended a meeting at the suggestion of a friend, but first I decided to read the organization’s Twelve Steps, the program that members must follow. The first step was enough to confirm that this form of sobriety wasn’t for me. Still, if you’re curious how I did it, here are my steps.

Step One: Ask Yourself, ‘Do I Really Have a Problem?’

Recovery culture has set the bar for being an alcoholic very, very low. I happen to think that alcoholism is in the liver of the beholder. If you can have one or two drinks and then go back to your day, you’re almost certainly not an alcoholic. If you have a couple of beers and then switch to soft drinks, you’re almost certainly not an alcoholic. If none of your friends has ever taken you aside and suggested that your life would be hugely improved by quitting drinking, you’re probably not an alcoholic (unless all your friends are alcoholics, too).

Step Two: Quit Publicly

It’s perfectly possible to get sober without attending meetings and pouring out your darkest secrets to a group of strangers. Now the bad news: It is impossible for an alcoholic to quit drinking in secret. Absolutely 100% impossible.

When I decided to stop, I wrote an open letter on my blog, explaining that I had a serious problem with alcohol and asking for the support of those around me. Posting on Facebook or Twitter for just your friends would work just as well. If you’re worried about your professional reputation if you ‘come out’ as an addict, you might want to consider sending a group email to a dozen or so people you trust. Believe me, word will get around. 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 are the ones who will be your greatest allies in quitting.

Step Three: Don’t Fear Failure

I know two people who had one drink after years of sobriety and, unable to face their AA buddies, never went to another meeting. Both are now back on the booze.

Step Four: Pull Yourself Together

I’m five feet nine inches tall, so at 182 pounds I was technically overweight, if not quite obese. I couldn’t jog up even a short flight of stairs without losing my breath. I’d love to say that after quitting I made an immediate decision to get healthy. I didn’t. The fact that I’d managed to conquer my addiction to alcohol was achievement enough without punishing my body by denying it pizza or forcing it — heaven forbid — to go for a run.

Step Five: Stop Lying

I’d always had a problem with truth — not gigantic lies or criminal frauds, just simple fibs that made life easier: excuses for running late, fudged numbers on business plans, vague answers when asked where I’d been the previous night. Shortly after I quit drinking, I also decided to quit lying, cold turkey.

Step Six: Stop Apologizing

In AA, they’re very clear on what to do about friends you have wronged. This article is sponsored by Hongxing Machinery specializing in mining equipment manufacturing such as [url=http://www.hxjqchina.com/product-list_56.html]vibrating screen[/url] and [url=http://www.hxjq-crusher.com/]cone crusher[/url]. Except where it would be harmful (for them), you should contact everyone you’ve upset, apologize, and do some unspecified thing to make it up to them. But this struck me as self-indulgent.

To be continued…