After my good old Sunday read today, I must rise to the defence of Mel Gibson. There has been much too much "slap the celebrity down" writing, and not enough about the dreadful desease he would appear to suffer from. Whilst he has said some pretty awful things whilst under the influence, many less famous people suffering from addictions have as well. Nobody is holier than anybody else, and I feel consistantly writing about him in the same light will not aid his recovery, in fact it can make the problem worse and indeed more secretive.
Come on press! We all love his films!

and still think The Passion Of The Christ was one of the best films ever made.

I must say that I actually own that film,on DVD but a friend of mine has told me that it is too strong for me to watch and so I am yet to unwrap it!
Another point to mention here, is that without eccentrics, addicts or whatever, there would probably be very little entertainment of quality.
We need the grey suited ones to put it all in to the scheme of things and that`s fine.
A good mate of mine who had two top ten singles, absolutely failed to function on a tour we did after his re-hab. Support is needed, not constant tellings off.

A lot of people suffer from addiction without even knowing it about themselves.

It is similar with phobias; people laugh at others due to their fears - the most common is clocks.

phobialist.com/reverse.html

As a kid, (and yes lets get this out of the way first, I am now a chain smoking adult), I was a terrible asthmatic, and as a result, I would clock watch all day and all night, to wait for the next inhaler cure, which could only be bi-hourly.
Thereby, I became a Pavlov dog, of waiting for the clock to click on the hour.
Armed with this knowledge,and life!, I do indeed do voluntary help for addicts, which is why I started this post.
Good post post Andrew.

nm

... very very afraid !

..but it is an interesting point ,learnt behaviour.
Is that an addiction too? Or just a general busy behaviour?
Nah, I think that`s taking it a bit far, there will next be a medical and clinical name for waking up, getting a cup of tea and a croissant.
Human breakfast syndrome.
It`s a disease, and I just invented it, anyone who wakes up hungry, seek therapy now!