WWW- Just hours after being busted for driving drunk in California, Mel Gibson tried to soften the pain – with a few more drinks.

“It was a little rough that morning,” Gibson said of facing his family after the arrest in Malibu. “So I chased it down with a few cold ones.”

Gibson was stopped in late July for speeding and drunken driving. He later pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge.

But what generated far more attention than the arrest was the Oscar winner’s anti-Semitic rant to the arresting officer.

The actor-director told ABC’s Diane Sawyer on “Good Morning America” he needed the morning-after booze because it was “kind of unbearable to face” his wife and kids.

After being arrested – and facing a backlash over his anti-Semitic tirade – Gibson went into rehab.

“I’m sort of viewing it now as kind of a blessing,” he said in the first of a two-part interview that concludes on today’s “Good Morning America”, from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m.

“I got stopped before I did real damage to anyone else. Thank God. I didn’t hurt myself, I didn’t leave my kids fatherless. That’s a blessing. The other thing is sometimes you need a cold bucket of water in the face to sort of snap to.

“In my case, public humiliation on a global scale seems to be what was required,” he added.

Part of that humiliation included some big-name Tinseltown insiders condemning his outburst. According to the arrest report, his comments included, “The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.”

“It sounds horrible and I’m ashamed that it came out of my mouth,” Gibson told Sawyer. “I’m not that. That’s not who I am.”

Gibson was accused of anti-Semitism after the release of his film “The Passion of the Christ.” His father, Hutton Gibson, has questioned the Holocaust.

On today’s “Good Morning America,” Gibson told Sawyer his father’s beliefs played no part in his outburst.

“It has nothing to do with it,” he said. “It’s … That’s in my own heart.”

Yesterday, the Anti-Defamation League welcomed Gibson’s comments.

“While there is an element of denial in his comments when he attributes anti-Semitic outbursts to the alcohol, Gibson seems remorseful and ashamed of what he said during his arrest,” the group’s national director Abraham Foxman said in a statement. “He’s asking the right questions of himself, which is a first step on the road to recovery from prejudice.”

Gibson also told Sawyer he struggles with anger.

“I’ve been angry all my life,” he said. “I try not to have it manifest itself. You try to keep a lock on it.”

Meanwhile, the Web site TMZ.com reported yesterday that the Los Angeles sheriff’s department raided the home of Deputy James Mee last month, seizing his computer, phone records and other documents.

Officials suspect Mee leaked parts of the arrest report detailing Gibson’s anti-Semitic spew after the sheriff’s department claimed the arrest occurred “without incident,” TMZ said.