ADDICTIONS ARE OFTEN DISCLOSED AMID SCANDALS

Former congressman Mark Foley's statement that he's an alcoholic,
coming after reports that he sent sexually explicit e-mails to
congressional pages, makes him the latest public figure to enter
rehab in the face of scandal.

Reps. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., and Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and
actor/director Mel Gibson have sought treatment in recent months for
alcohol or drug addiction during trying circumstances.

Doing so removes them from the public eye and may win sympathy, says
Gary Jacobson, a political science professor at the University of
California, San Diego. It's also a way to shift some of the blame
from the person to the addiction, he says.

"This seems to have become standard operating procedure," Jacobson
says. "It's a way of both taking responsibility and denying it at the
same time."

Kennedy checked into treatment in May, a day after he crashed his car
near the Capitol. Kennedy, who has a history of drug and alcohol
problems, said he was battling an addiction to prescribed painkillers.

Gibson entered an alcohol treatment program this summer after
pleading no contest to drunken driving. Gibson made anti-Semitic
remarks to arresting officers when he was stopped in Malibu.

Ney announced last month that he was seeking treatment for alcoholism
the same day he agreed to plead guilty to corruption charges related
to the Jack Abramoff influence-peddling scandal.

Foley's announcement Monday surprised Sarah Chamberlain, executive
director of the Republican Main Street Partnership. Foley emceed the
group's annual dinner Wednesday.

"At the dinners, he was always working, so usually he didn't have
anything to drink," she says.

Foley has not acknowledged or denied that he sent the e-mails.

Alcoholism may exacerbate other disorders, says Fred Berlin, founder
of Johns Hopkins University's Sexual Disorders Clinic. "It can impair
a person's judgment and can lead them to become disinhibited with
respect to their impulses," he says. "It's like throwing gasoline on the fire."

Berlin says alcoholism has reached a level of acceptance that sexual
disorders have not. "It's much less socially stigmatizing to admit to
alcoholism than it may be to admit to some other problem," he says.