KDKA’s Facebook Live weather chat took a sober turn last night when weather anchor Jon Burnett opened up about being an alcoholic.
Burnett and Dennis Bowman, who retired in 2015, but is back in front of the camera filling in for Jeff Verszyla, were reading comments, when one viewer remarked that Bowman had gained weight since retirement.
“I’ve joined Jenny Craig and so far I’ve lost 150 dollars,” Bowman joked. Then things got serious as Burnett said, “As you know I quit drinking after 45 years of drinking way more heavily than I should have. This was 240 days ago. On June the 25th I had my last drink and I thought I would just lose weight and get in shape. And what did I do? I replaced the booze with chocolate.”
“You’re a big man to go public with that,” Bowman said.
“I was a fool to drink as hard and as long as I did. So I’m just glad to get that behind me. If I could be one of these people who could have a glass of wine and walk away from it. I’d be drinking ’til the day I die. But I’d drink one and next thing you know it’d be 10.”
“I never got a DUI. I never caused an accident. But I might have. It was coming,” Burnett said.
“My wife helps me. She also told me, one more incident and she was leaving me. This is getting way more personal, here,” Burnett said, as he got choked up. “The biggest thing that got me was, my daughter told me that she didn’t trust me to watch the grand-kids anymore. And when that happened I thought ‘I gotta change.'”