SAN FRANCISCO -- Veteran Bay Area politician John Burton has wrestled with his own demons so when his protégé Gavin Newsom turned to him for advice, he didn't mince words.

Burton told the San Francisco mayor it was time to come to grips with his alcohol problems.

"We had talked earlier," the former state senator said on Wednesday's Mornings on 2. "I had heard rumors…I had read in the paper that he was drinking…I said I really don't care, but this is what is out there… After the event (Newsom admitted to having an affair with a friend's wife), I called again and said do you want to get together?

"And we talked…Basically, what I believe and have seen through my friends, is that it takes some outside stimulus to get you to really admit you have a problem."

Burton's own political career was sidetracked for a time in 1982 when he entered a rehab program in Arizona. He emerged clean and sober and had been so since -- as he proudly says -- Sept. 30, 1982.

He went on to a high profile career at the state house in both the Assembly and Senate until he was forced from office by terms limits in 2003.

Burton also saw promise in Newsom at a young age.

"He's a good kid," Burton told KTVU. "I've known him all his life. He's tough, he's resilient. That's why I believe he'll come out of this all right…I used to go to high school basketball games and he would be diving for loose balls, crashing in for rebounds. He clearly has got something…He's a self-made man."

The veteran lawmaker bristled when it was suggested that Newsom played "the rehab card" when he followed up his admittance to the affair with an announcement he was seeking help with an alcohol problem.

"Everybody at City Hall -- well not everybody -- knew he had a drinking problem," Burton said. "People were telling me -- 'Talk to your friend, he has a drinking problem.' Matier and Ross wrote that he was drunk at a hospital. It's not like that guy Mark Foley where people never knew he had a drink.

"It's not a cop out. It was a realization that I have a problem and look what it got me into and I better get my life together."

Burton said his main concern was not Newsom's political rehabilitation.

"What's important to me is that he comes out of this as Gavin Newsom, not 'Mayor Newsom,'" Burton said.

As for the Delancy Street program Newsom was entering, Burton said: "That's no walk in the park."