Mel Gibson is supposedly on the road to sobriety, but we had no idea that hanging out in bars is one of the 12 steps.

Maybe he's just putting his self-control to the ultimate test. The troubled actor and director was spotted in an Austin, Tx., bar Friday night hanging out until 2:30 a.m. -- and according to a witness, he was "only drinking water" and not flirting with women.

Mad Mel was in the Lone Star State making the rounds for his upcoming Mayan epic, Apocalypto, when a reporter discovered him playing pool at a local joint called the Side Bar. Even his rep acknowledged that the description was apt, saying that "sounds like Mel."

Meanwhile, the kerfuffle over Mel's remarks at a press conference down in Austin -- where the drunk-driving lunatic compared Mayan culture just before its collapse and America today -- is just scraping the surface of what he actually said.

"I just wanna draw the parallels," Gibson told MSNBC. "I just looked at it, and thought, we display that stuff here. I don't wanna be a doomsayer, but the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. So have fun!"

Yikes. Better start stockpiling booze now.