ACTOR : BEN AFFLECK'S BUD

WARNING : This is not of those celebrity profiles that uses a teaspoon of new information to flavor a barrel of ancient history. There is no paragraph where the star and the writer pretend to pals -

Gag while doing an everyday-person activity. What was everyone eating? Who cares. No, you will not get severed the obligatory canned quote from Matt Damon.

This is Ben Affleck, raw and vulnerable, talking exclusively for the first time about getting sober [again] and trying to recalibrate his career [again].

Affieck, Oscar-winning writer, director of the Oscar-winning ''Argo,'' better actor than you remember - and, yes alcoholic, divorce and proud possessor of a mythical back tattoo - has four movie coming out this year.

Dad Bod Batman has been banished, and actual films are back on his docket, including his first all -on-him movie in four years. ''The Way Back'' a poignant sports drama that arrived in theaters on March 6.

Affleck plays a reluctant highschool basketball coach with big problems - he's a puffy, willful, fall-down drunk who blows up his marriage and lands in a rehab.
You read that correctly.

''People with compulsive behavior, and I am one, have this kind of basic discomfort all the time that they're trying to make go away,'' he said a couple Sundays ago during a two-hour interview at a beachside spot in Los Angeles.

''You're trying to make yourself feel better with eating or drinking or gambling or shopping or whatever.

But that ends up making your life worse. Then you do more of it to make that discomfort go away. Then the real pain starts. It becomes a vicious cycle you can't break. That's at least what happened to me.''

He cleared his throat. ''I drank relatively normally for a long time. What 

Affleck, 47, has been working like a madman to get his career back on track. The hard truth is that the outcome is not guaranteed.

Moviegoers, women in particular, will ultimately decide : Is forgiveness for transgressions still something that society in all of its Twitter-fied polarization allows?

He just finished acting in ''Deep Water,'' a psychological thriller co-starring Ana de Armas [''Knives Out''] that's due in theaters in November.

He's on Netflix this month in ''The Last Thing He Wanted,'' an abysmally reviewed mystery anchored by Anne Hathaway and directed by Dee Rees. Affleck has also been working the Oscar-nominated Nicole Holofcener [''Can You Ever Forgive Me?''] and Damon on the script for ''The Last Duel,'' which begins filming in France this month.

Set in the 14th century, ''The Last Duel'' reteams Affleck and Damon as screen writers for the last time since ''Good Will Hunting'' in 1997; Ridley Scott is directing the film, which has Oscar bait written all over it.

Disney plans to release ''The Last Duel'' in theaters at Christmas time through its 20th Century label.

The Honor and Serving of the latest operational research and writings on great actors and lives, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Brooks Barnes.