{"id":8247,"date":"2015-07-20T08:30:33","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T13:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.robertfeder.com\/?p=8247"},"modified":"2015-07-20T08:39:47","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T13:39:47","slug":"a-sober-nick-digilio-unbelievably-thankful-to-be-back-on-wgn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/2015\/07\/20\/a-sober-nick-digilio-unbelievably-thankful-to-be-back-on-wgn\/","title":{"rendered":"A sober Nick Digilio \u2018unbelievably thankful to be back\u2019 on WGN"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Nick<\/a>

<\/a> Nick Digilio<\/p><\/div>\n

Nick Digilio returned to his WGN AM 720<\/a> overnight show Monday, attributing his monthlong absence to a stomach ailment worsened by alcohol and vowing: \u201cI\u2019m not gonna have a drink ever again.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an emotional broadcast <\/a>his first night back on the Tribune Media news\/talk station since mid-June, Digilio said the effects of drinking without eating landed him in Swedish Covenant Hospital<\/a> for five days and prompted a reassessment of his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI blame nobody but myself for this,\u201d he told listeners. \u201cIt was stupid and irresponsible of me. I have been a drinker for a long time. The tone of the show, if you\u2019ve listened on a regular basis, goes back to booze a lot and my enjoyment of it. Well, I\u2019m never drinking again. It\u2019s done. June 11, 2015, is the last drink that I will ever have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digilio, who turned 50 on July 6 (\u201cI did it from a couch and a bed,\u201d he recalled, \u201cthat\u2019s how I celebrated my 50th birthday\u201d), said he had never been under the influence while on the air, but often would drink too much after his show.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn late May I got a stomach thing. I have no idea what it was. I\u2019m not going to get into details of the symptoms, but it was just not good. My stomach was messed up and it caused me to not eat. And I had some other stomach issues. It wasn\u2019t good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose of you who listen to this show on a regular basis know that I enjoy adult beverages on a regular basis. The main problem was that I was on an empty stomach. I wasn\u2019t eating because of the stomach thing, and yet I was continuing to imbibe. . . .\u00a0It was a stupid thing. It was my own fault. I should not have done what I did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t eating. I was depressed because of my ailment, my stomach thing. I had no appetite. So I was depressed and I would get home from work in the morning and I would have drinks. Sometimes a few too many. This was not good. . . . At one point I didn\u2019t eat for seven days straight. Then it sort of hit me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of his ordeal, Digilio said he was dropping \u201cDrunks in the News,\u201d a long-running weekly feature on his show. \u201cI\u2019m done with that. It took this for me to realize that I may have over the years offended people because of that segment, taking it too lightly. There were a lot of people who we probably read the stories about and laughed our asses off about who were in trouble, who needed help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Telling listeners he was \u201cunbelievably thankful to be back,\u201d Digilio said: \u201cI can\u2019t tell you how much I missed this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before taking calls from an outpouring of supportive fans, he said: \u201cI am back on my feet. I\u2019m not completely 100 percent yet. But I\u2019m back here, and I plan on staying here. I wanted to be as honest with you guys as possible about what happened. . . . It was stupid, it was irresponsible, and I am never, ever going to let that happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nick Digilio returned to his WGN AM 720 overnight show Monday, attributing his monthlong absence to a stomach ailment worsened by alcohol and vowing: \u201cI\u2019m not gonna have a drink ever again.\u201d In an emotional broadcast his first night back on the Tribune Media news\/talk station since mid-June, Digilio said the effects of drinking without... Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8247"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8251,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8247\/revisions\/8251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robertfeder.dailyherald.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}