“I’m no longer a functioning alcoholic,” former WGGB anchor Paul Mueller announced in a recent phone conversation, talking about his struggle with addiction that came to a head in April when a YouTube video of him slurring his speech while MC-ing a charity event bounced around the internet and eventually caused him to resign.

“At the beginning, I was so unhappy with the person that posted the video but now I’m grateful to them,” Mueller told TVSpy. “They saved my life.”

Mueller has since sought help for his alcoholism and, as of today, he has been sober for 43 days. He has travelled a great distance during those 43 days (as evidenced by the Day 1 photo at right), moving beyond the initial humiliation caused by the YouTube video and focussing his energy on becoming a better, healthier person.

The early wake-up time and long hours required for his job anchoring WGGB’s morning newscast left Mueller, a recent transplant to Springfield, feeling isolated. “The shift was enabling me,” Mueller says. On a typical day, he would wake up at 2:00 a.m. and return home from work around 3:00 p.m., at which point he would spend the rest of the day drinking. Read more

Admitting that he’d “had a few drinks” before addressing the crowd at a fundraising gala on Saturday, former WGGB anchor Paul Mueller told the Boston Herald that “alcohol is a problem.”

In a story that first broke on TVSpy, Mueller was captured in a video posted to YouTube slurring his speech before a packed house at a fundraiser for the Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover Foundation, which honors the 11-year-old boy who hanged himself after being bullied in school.

Mueller officially resigned from the Springfield ABC-affiliate on Monday, telling TVSpy that he was leaving to seek treatment “for a medical issue that needs immediate attention.”

Mueller now says that the station threatened to fire him if he didn’t quit. Read more

A video uploaded to YouTube over the weekend has caused anchor Paul Mueller to abruptly resign from WGGB, an ABC-affiliate in Springfield, MA.

On Saturday, Mueller served as master of ceremonies at a fund-raising gala for the Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover Foundation, an organization that gives scholarships to local students in honor of the 11-year-old boy who hanged himself two years ago after being bullied at school.

Mueller volunteered to MC the event after the organization reached out to WGGB, which runs a regular series called “Bully Busters” that focuses on bullying prevention. An attendee of the event captured part of a speech that Mueller gave to the packed house in which the anchor appeared to be intoxicated, drawing astonished looks from the crowd as well as a few laughs (video above). Read more