'Sex addict' Woods signed 'celibacy contract' at rehab clinic

Deborah Hobson - The-Latest EXCLUSIVE

Some media outlets in America  are reporting that troubled billionaire golf champion Tiger Woods is being treated for sex addiction at a rehabilitation clinic in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Woods has recently admitted to a string of extramarital affairs after public revelations made by a succession of paramours.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis, author of the book America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life and himself a recovering sex addict, wrote on his personal blog this week that Woods is receiving treatment at the clinic, citing an unnamed source.

Denizet-Lewis says he spent some time at Pine Grove Behavioural Health & Addiction Services in Hattiesburg a few years ago while writing his book.

Last week, Radar Online and Jackson, Mississippi, television stations WJTV and WLBT reported through sources that Woods was at the Hattiesburg clinic.

Officials at the clinic have not confirmed that Woods is there, and The-Latest has not been able to confirm that Woods is at the clinic.

Denizet-Lewis, who has written for the New York Times Magazine and other publications, writes that the programmes at the clinic include group therapy sessions and family and couple's therapy, so if Woods "and his wife, Elin, are serious about repairing the marriage, she will be spending some time in treatment with Tiger".

He states: “Sex rehabs also require patients (although they don't use that word, preferring "clients") to sign a "celibacy contract" that includes a pledge not to have sex with anyone, or to masturbate, while in treatment.

Men who had repeatedly cheated on their wives had to write "empathy letters" to them, which would never be sent but were read in group and usually criticised for not being nearly empathetic enough. The wives, meanwhile, wrote painful "cost letters" - detailing how the addiction had affected them - that were read to their husbands for the first time in a group by another group member. Family therapy was also an important part of treatment for the patients, many of whom were on the brink of breakup or divorce.