TORONTO

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford says the reason he lied about smoking crack for six months is probably that he was so drunk when he tried it about a year ago, he doesn’t remember what happened.

In other words, North America’s third-largest city is now being led by a mayor who, despite his denials, appears to be displaying all the classic signs of addiction, including, as he called them, “drunken stupors” and memory loss.

Whether Ford is also addicted to drugs doesn’t even matter.

Not only has he refused to quit drinking, he’s adamant he’ll keep drinking, only at a slower pace.

Indeed, like a textbook addict, Ford doesn’t believe he’s an addict, or that he’s hit bottom.

Otherwise he would have announced Tuesday that he would step down or step aside to get the help he needs.

Instead, Ford seems to think that if he makes enough generalized, weepy-eyed apologies and says he’s sorry enough times, everything will be forgiven.

He told us Tuesday, as he did on his radio talk show Sunday, that he’s embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated and that he’s learned his lesson -- this time about lying about smoking crack, as he had earlier lied about his public drunkenness.

He’s begging for forgiveness. But how many times have the families of addicts heard similar promises, only to have the cycle of addiction start all over again?

Basically, Ford is asking the people of Toronto to trust him.

The problem, based on his behaviour — including consorting with criminals — is that Ford is no longer worthy of the public’s trust.

Even during his two media appearances Tuesday, he was still trying to rationalize away his own wrongdoing.

He absurdly suggested the reason he didn’t admit to crack use six months ago, when reports of him being caught on video doing it first surfaced, was that reporters didn’t ask the right questions at the time.

Ford keeps saying he accepts responsibility for his actions and only he is to blame for them, but his first move the day after his admission of public drunkenness was to tell his own executive committee members to resign if they wouldn’t stand by him.

Mere hours before Ford’s admission of crack use Tuesday, his older brother and effective co-mayor, Councillor Doug Ford, was trying to shift the blame for Ford’s actions to police Chief Bill Blair, calling for Blair to resign for making political statements against the mayor.

Of course, with Ford subsequently admitting he had smoked cocaine, we now know all Blair did was accurately describe the contents of the crack video police recovered last week.

The video that media reports said for months “appeared” to show Ford smoking crack and making racist and homophobic remarks.

Ford’s final plea Tuesday was to continue saving taxpayers money, oblivious to the fact he is now the biggest threat to his own agenda of fiscal conservatism.

That’s because with Ford refusing to step down, the looming fight at City Hall will be with his own council — including many of his former allies — moving to strip him of his power to govern.

If that doesn’t work, council could conceivably ask Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government to intervene, since municipalities are legally defined as “creatures of the province,“ although at present, the only way to get rid of a municipal politician is if he’s been convicted of a crime and is in prison.

The bottom line is simple. If Ford loves Toronto as he claims, he’ll step down and seek help.

If he doesn’t, then we’ll know that claim, too, is just one more lie by the mayor.