Mel Gibson has said that he started drinking at the age of thirteen.[108] In a 2002 interview about his time at NIDA, Gibson said,

    "I had really good highs but some very low lows. I found out recently I'm manic depressive."

Gibson has not made any other public mention of having bipolar disorder.

In 1984, Gibson was arrested in Toronto for driving with a blood alcohol level between 0.12%-0.13% after he rear-ended a car. According to Clarkson, when the other driver exited his vehicle and began shouting profanity at him, Mel Gibson laughed and offered him a drink. Gibson plead guilty and was fined $300 and banned from driving in Ontario for 3 months. In court he apologized to the Toronto community and thanked the police.

In 1985, Gibson retreated to his Australian farm for over a year to recover, but he continued to struggle with drinking. Despite this problem, Gibson gained a reputation in Hollywood for professionalism and punctuality, so that Lethal Weapon 2 director Richard Donner was shocked when Gibson confided that he was drinking five pints of beer for breakfast.[66] Gibson said, in 2003, that his despair in his mid-thirties led him to contemplate suicide, and he meditated on Christ's Passion to heal his wounds.[62] In 1992, Gibson provided financial support to Hollywood's Recovery Center, saying, "Alcoholism is something that runs in my family. It's something that's close to me. People do come back from it, and it's a miracle."

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