Last Mel Gibson post, I swear.

This isn’t exactly news to any who has been drunk before, but it’s nice to see it confirmed:

Was this alcohol-fueled soliloquy an ugly insight into Mr. Gibson’s character — in other words, in vino veritas? Or was it just the tequila talking?

***

“We all have things that we might think or feel or even be attracted to that we know are wrong,” said Dr. Corcoran, who is also the dean of arts and sciences at Northern Kentucky University. For example, he said, people are likelier to look at pornography when they drink than when they are sober; alcohol reduces inhibitions, for good or ill.

Alcohol suppresses the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum regions of the brain, said Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, who declined to comment specifically on the Gibson case.

The cerebellum governs motor coordination, which explains the drunk’s weaving walk and iffy driving skills. The prefrontal cortex “is normally making an assessment of the appropriateness of your acts,” she said, modulating desires and urges. After a couple of drinks, Dr. Volkow said, suppressing such impulses becomes much harder.

“Alcohol brings you back into adolescence and childhood,” she said, the time before the prefrontal cortex is fully developed.

This leads to a condition that researchers call the “alcohol myopia effect,” in which someone who has had too much to drink reacts to immediate cues without regard to consequences or the broader social context. G. Alan Marlatt, director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington, said that psychologists often focus on the difference between “traits and states.” Inebriation is a temporary state, but it might unleash one’s deeper and more permanent traits, he said.

RELATED:  I woudn’t recommend this, but you can now get Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic rant as a ringtone for your cellphone.