The Braveheart star was arrested in California in July on suspicion of drunk driving and made racist comments to his arresting officers.
Gibson appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Thursday to promote his new film Apocalypto sporting a suit and a new clean-cut image.
When Leno made a joke about his new style, Gibson quickly shot back, "It's the defendant look."
He claims he is coping with the fallout from the scandal, saying, "I've been overwhelmed by understanding. It just tells you how you get things wrong sometimes.
"So, it's great. It's a work in progress. I did the right thing--walk on, keep your side of the street clean and move on..."
Gibson revealed that he has been sober for four-and-a-half months jokingly adding, "If I feel like clutching for the turpentine, (Danny) DeVito and (George) Clooney just talk me through it.
"It's a gradual thing, it doesn't happen overnight."
Gibson: 'Nobody's Perfect'
Mel Gibson as justified his drunken anti-Semitic outburst as a "screw-up"--and doesn't think he should have been singled out for so much criticism.
The 50-year-old star is blaming the press for making a fuss about the July incident, and insists "no one is perfect."
However, he admits media coverage is something he has learned to live with.
He says, "Unfortunately I think it's become more of a trend, because after all, it sells more newspapers to actually focus on and identify someone and sometimes it gets out of hand.
"I think the balance is way off, but that's the way it is and you can't change that. So what you have to do is just try and balance it for yourself and everyone around you, which is an ongoing process.
"Everybody goofs and screws up and I tell you, if you ask everyone in the world to raise their hand if they never said something vicious, something they regretted or something stupid, there wouldn't be many people who would be able to raise those things."
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