from usa today
Alcohol loosens tongue, but only Gibson knows true feelings
By Marilyn Elias, USA TODAY
Science can give no firm answer on whether Mel Gibson believes the anti-Semitic remarks that were attributed to him after his DUI arrest, addiction experts say.
"Alcohol is not a truth serum," says psychologist G. Alan Marlatt, director of Addictive Behaviors Research Center at University of Washington-Seattle. Because alcohol lowers inhibitions, it can lead people to say what they feel at the moment, Marlatt says. But in Gibson's case, "it may or may not indicate his true feelings."
Gibson's supposed rant about Jews does indicate that the topic has meaning to him, says addiction psychiatrist Bryon Adinoff of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. "Clearly, Jews are on his mind. He made The Passion of the Christ, and many reacted negatively to how Jews were depicted. Now we have a war going on in the Middle East. It's something that's on his mind, or it probably wouldn't come out when he had some alcohol," Adinoff says.
The remarks attributed to Gibson "could reflect pent-up frustration and anger at how his life has changed since he made the movie," says psychologist William Iacono of the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis. "People can lash out when they're drunk, and we don't know how deeply they believe what they're saying."
But Iacono says such remarks about Jews are unlikely to be random, "to come out of nowhere." Although science can't determine whether the star spoke what he felt, it's reasonable to think the remarks have some kernel of truth for Gibson, he says.
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