What Ever Happened to Anonymity?

Some months ago I sat helplessly watching as a young and very famous actress, with wide-eyed sincerity, confided to God knows how many thousands (or millions) of faceless television viewers that she belonged to Alcoholics Anonymous. Yesterday I finished reading a book which accurately and absorbingly reported a successful author's sojourn at a treatment center and his subsequent joining of AA. Naturally the by-line was his real and famous name. He also referred by name to the above-mentioned actress, divulging that the word among his fellow patients was that she had "gone out" (drinking, of course) but had "come back" (to AA).