Steve Sarkisian politely sidestepped questions about the subject before he called plays for Alabama in the College Football Playoff championship game last month.
The issues that contributed to his dismissal as USC’s coach in 2015, he told reporters, were something to be discussed at another time.
On Thursday, two days after the Atlanta Falcons hired him as offensive coordinator, Sarkisian spoke publicly about his battle with alcoholism for the first time.
“It's not something that is necessarily in the past,” Sarkisian said during a conference call. “It's something I have to work on every single day, and I do work on it every single day.