Posted by Bud on January 24, 2010 at 08:24:36:
In Reply to: WGN-TV's Allison Payne admits addiction to alcohol posted by Bud on January 22, 2010 at 16:13:13:
WGN's Allison Payne admits fight with addiction but says it 'was not the issue when I was out sick'
Anchorwoman Allison Payne has gone public with her 20-year fight against addiction, and believes there is no shame in acknowledging that she has had a drinking problem.
But Payne and WGN-Ch. 9 News Director Greg Caputo on Friday said that admission, which came as a passing mention during a Thursday newscast, was not the reason she was off the air for much of 2008. She and the station still attribute those absences to a series of mini-strokes and their lingering effects, including depression, for which she still receives treatment.
Drinking, Payne said Friday, “was not the issue when I was out sick. … My right hand was numb. I had no use of my right hand. They diagnosed me with mini-strokes.”
Chicago Public Radio blogger Robert Feder reported Payne’s Thursday on-air remark, which came during an interview with former pro hockey player Theo Fleury. Payne said she once worked with the same Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor that helped Fleury, who is promoting his autobiography alleging childhood sexual abuse and subsequent drug and alcohol addictions.
Feder recalled how Payne responded to viewer concerns over her slurred speech and swiveling in her chair on an August 2008 broadcast, telling the Chicago Tribune, “I was not drunk.” She blamed the incident on the effects of the mini-strokes, compounded by overwork and perhaps a bit of adrenaline-fueled giddiness.
The Chicago Tribune and WGN are both owned by Tribune Co.
Payne, who noted that the AA sponsor she identified on Channel 9 on Thursday has been dead almost a year, said her AA history is why she was so intent on getting out word that she was not drunk that night in 2008. When pressed, she acknowledged she does not attend weekly meetings but she said it has been “probably five years since the last time I went on a big drinking binge.”
Two and a half weeks after the slurring episode, Payne went to Mayo Clinic for a battery of tests to better treat her health issues. It was just one of many absences that year for her.
Payne, who joined Channel 9 as co-anchor of its marquee 9 p.m. newscast in 1990, first was sidelined from January to April 2008 and then again from November of that year to the beginning of 2009. Upon her return to Channel 9's 5:30 p.m. broadcast last January, the station said she would stay off the 9 p.m. show to "allow her to continue with her rehabilitation," but she never returned to the prime-time broadcast.
Last fall, while WGN added two years to her contract that would have expired this spring, the station moved Payne full-time to its expanded two-hour 11 a.m. newscast.
“Remember that time I told you I was not drinking?” said Payne, who will turn 46 next month. “That’s because I’m not a drinker. No way I was drunk on the air. Twenty years ago, when I first came to Chicago, I felt like I might be headed down the path of a drinking problem. One of my colleagues at WGN who shall remain anonymous took me to my first AA meeting, and subsequently I met this guy Michael, who’s larger than life. He became my AA sponsor. … Years later, he became Theo’s sponsor.
“There is no shame in all of this. That’s why I was so happy to talk to Theo. Because he was coming clean and he was letting go of his shame. In saying to Theo that (this person) was my sponsor too, I was letting go of some of my shame that I’ve held on to. I haven’t written a book or called you and said: ‘I’m a recovering alcoholic. Why don’t you do a story on that?’ It’s not something you advertise. But there are a lot of people in the AA community who know.”
Payne said that in dealing with her health issues, she has been conscious to make certain the doctors treating her take into account her history. “Substance abuse can become a problem,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that nothing in my life got out of hand.”