After a spectacular fall from grace that included two arrests in the same night, longtime KTVU anchor Frank Somerville is looking amazing, clearly has been working out, and is now sporting a Batman tattoo on his surprisingly muscular right arm.

The disturbing downward spiral for 30-year KTVU anchor Frank Somerville started (well, we first noticed it) when he was slurring his words on-air on the Bay Area’s highest-rated local news broadcast during Memorial Day weekend 2021. (He would not appear in the KTVU anchor seat again.) Six months later, Somerville was arrested for a DUI crash in Oakland with a blood alcohol content of 0.24%. But it was truly rock-bottom when Somerville was arrested twice in one night in Berkeley in June 2023, with the second arrest being a suspicion of DUI.  

Somerville gave a December 2023 interview to KRON4 in which he admitted he was an alcoholic, and was attending five AA meetings a week. We have not heard much from him since. But we did hear from him again in a May 2 Facebook post, and damn he looks good. Plus he apparently now has a Batman tattoo?

“Since I’ve been sober I can finally be totally consistant (sic) in all aspects of my life including being in the gym 5 days a week,” Somerville says in the post. “I’d love to be there 7 days but sometimes I’ve got to give my 67 year old body time to rest.”

“I can also set goals now and achieve them,” he adds. “My next goal is to run an 8 minute mile. Right now I’m down to 9:30.”

“So I’ve got my work cut out for me,” he concludes. “But I’ll get there because as we say in our meetings: I’m sober as f—k!!!”

Some people may be skeptical that Somerville is doing as well as he depicts, just given the events, and the denial in which he engaged in some interviews during the ugly phase. But you can’t deny that he looks heads and shoulders healthier than in his December 2023 KRON4 interview, or that bearded look he was sporting in early 2023.

And come on, when’s the last time you saw a set of guns like that on a 67-year-old man? It’s a sign that Frank Somerville has likely turned things around, and we’re rooting for Frank that this continues.

Related: Frank Somerville Gives Full Interview to KRON4, Says He'd Like to Get Back to Anchoring [SFist]

Image: Frank Somerville via Facebook

Four months into the supervisor’s recovery, he spoke to the Chronicle about his “whole new chapter,” and even his political enemies say he’s more pleasant to be around these days.

There were a number of good government concerns, and certainly also some blood in the water for his adversaries, when District 3 supervisor Aaron Peskin announced in June he was seeking treatment for alcoholism. Peskin did not step down from the board, and attended a board meeting five days later to give a pretty solid apology. And it is a ubiquitous refrain that folks in recovery take it “One day at a time,” but four months into his recovery, Peskin spoke to the Chronicle about his newfound sobriety, and a few of his (many) political enemies agree he’s turned over a new leaf.

Peskin did not “go up north,” or take the common recovery tactic of going off the grid for month at a treatment facility. Still, it seems clear that Peskin has committed to his treatment, unlike Gavin Newsom’s fake rehab in 2007, which may have merely been a front to conceal, umm, other issues.

“I’ve literally had people come up to me on the streets and asked me to take them to AA meetings,” Peskin told the Chronicle. “If I’m helping other people, that’s icing on the cake.”

The Chron notes that City Hall colleagues say Peskin often rattles off the number of days he’s been sober, a telltale sign of someone doing the work.

“It’s been a whole new chapter in my life at the age of 57,” Peskin said. “I have really appreciated the outpouring of support from friends and colleagues and even many people that I don’t know. It’s been a humbling and gratifying and life-changing experience."

It turns out that Supervisor Hillary Ronen, a political ally whom Peskin would nonetheless belittle at board meetings, actually called Peskin out over his drinking the day before he went public. She told the Chronicle that he “took the situation seriously and got the help that he needed to really change his behavior at work,” and that “I feel like he has been at his best in the board meetings ever since.”

The Chron notes that “Colleagues, friends, political rivals and community members who spoke with The Chronicle almost all said they’ve noticed a positive change,” with the supervisor, with one notable exception, and golly can you guess who that is. Mayor London Breed commented opaquely that “I’ve had productive conversations with the President of the Board about the conduct of some of his colleagues and I’ve had frank conversations with those colleagues directly to make it clear where I draw the line, but ultimately these are independently elected officials and it is their responsibility as leaders to conduct themselves in a professional manner.”

In the wake of Peskin’s June admission, there was a very odd discourse on bullying at City Hall, which seemed a little absurd, as there are very sharp elbows at every single city hall in America. Politics attracts that kind of person! But whatever his past demeanor, Peskin did not have to go public with his recovery but he chose to anyway. There are plenty of officials in SF City Hall, and the Sacramento statehouse, and probably Congress who are in recovery and keep it secret. Peskin made it public, perhaps as damage control, but it seems he's being public about it is a source of strength and stability for him.

Related: Peskin Apology Adds to Already Dramatic Board of Supervisors Meeting as Tensions Mount With Mayor [SFist]

Image: @AaronPeskin via Twitter

We already know San Francisco is a town full of drunks (we were named the 18th drunkest city in an least one click-bait-y survey earlier this year), but our collective drinking habit might also be taking a toll on something other than your liver. According to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control, excessive drinking amongst Californians cost the Golden State $32 billion in a single year.

Binge drinking, as you probably learned in health class, is defined by the CDC as five or more drinks in one occasion for men and four or more for the ladies. According to the study's authors, the costs associated with excessive drinking are the result of "losses in workplace productivity" (working hungover) and "health care expenses" (getting sick because you drank too much). They also factored in criminal justice expenses like dealing with DUIs and property damage caused by drunk assholes. The study, which used data from 2006, the most recent available, also adds somewhat depressingly:

Researchers believe that the study’s findings are underestimated because it did not consider a number of other costs, such as those due to pain and suffering by the excessive drinker or others who were affected by the drinking.

Ouch.

Heavy drinking actually costs Washington D.C. $1,662 per person — the highest in the nation — but as the country's most populated state, California takes the honor of spending the most money to deal with our citizenry's drinking habits.

Another thing to drink to at happy hour tonight.

[CDC]

... and all we got was this limp pub-crawl roundup.

Yes, we like getting national kudos as "one of this country's great bar cities", and the gorgeous put-it-in-my-mouth photo sets the piece up for success. But we can't help but be a little disappointed by the cursory treatment of our fair city's ample drinking options. For starters, when we hear "20 bars in four days", we're looking forward to some juicy details. But author Rosie Schaap sounds like the least debauched binge drinker to ever grace our fair city.

She visits old North Beach standbys Vesuvio and Tosca, listens to stories about William S. Burroughs and Jerry Garcia, then checks out cocktails at Comstock Saloon, The Alembic, and Big. Also on her best-of shortlist are Aub Zam Zam, Rite Spot Cafe, Specs and Edinburgh Castle.

The author seems to be searching for an old-timey drinking landscape to contrast with the start-ups and yuppies of today's modern times. She concludes:

San Francisco may be flush with locavores and dot-commers, but I was reminded that it's still deeply rooted in its strange gritty, boozy history.

To which we say: sit down, stay awhile, and we'll show you strange and boozy.

In this two-fisted drinking town, it often seems impossible to leave one's apartment without inevitably ending up with a hangover the next day. Local author, comedian and poet Bucky Sinister, however, has been through the ordeal and didn't even have to flee to some quietly sober suburb. Over at the Bold Italic today, Bucky eloquently offers up his experience about where to go, what to do and how to brave the city without the liquid courage.

Sinister, who has literally written volumes about his experiences with drugs and booze, not to mention a couple of self-help books about recovery, says he started with a simple routine: lifting weights at the 24 Hour Fitness, late nights at the old Hunt's Donuts on Mission Street, cheap tapes from Lost Weekend. When that got boring, however, being social and sober meant picking up some new friends. Because nothing will make someone fall off the wagon faster than friendships that are entirely based on alcohol-slicked interactions. Bucky explains the pleasant side of his sobering experience:

I had no idea that people went to dinner without drinks, went to movies sober, and saw bands without being high. I really thought that everyone who wasn't a fundamentalist drank as much as I did. Not only could I do things sober, there were no negative consequences, and I actually remembered what I had done that night.

For some dry activities, Bucky suggests readings at City Lights, comedy and venues like the Knockout, where the straightedge kids are just as welcome as the drinkers. Plus, sober people have all kinds of time. The five books Bucky has published since becoming sober are a testament to that.

Read on over at the Bold Italic to see how the sober half lives.