A writer published in the New York Times Magazine reveals that Tiger Woods is currently a patient at Gentle Path — a sex addiction program at Pine Grove, a treatment center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Benoit Denizet-Lewis, who has written extensively about his own sex addiction, wrote on his personal blog Monday that a source confirmed Woods' stay at the clinic. Denizet-Lewis, who interviewed staff and patients at the center for his book America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life, notes that Gentle Path's program "is directed by Patrick Carnes, one of the world's leading experts on sex addiction." The treatment center would not confirm the identity of any of its patients.
The official website for Pine Grove says that the Gentle Path program is "for those suffering from sexual addiction, relationship addiction and sexual anorexia."
Denizet-Lewis speculates that Woods, 34, may have begun his sex addiction treatment elsewhere — such as the Meadows treatment center in Arizona, where the golfer had allegedly also been spotted.
The reporter explains that the usual regimen at sex addiction centers nationwide includes group therapy sessions as well as family and couple's therapy. "If Tiger and his wife, Elin, are serious about repairing their marriage," he writes, "she will be spending some time in Hattiesburg with Tiger." Another typical requirement: patients must sign a "celibacy contract" — a promise "not to have sex with anyone, or to masturbate, while in treatment," Denizet-Lewis explains.
In his book, Denizet-Lewis writes of other typical sex-clinic practices, including "empathy letters" for unfaithful married men and "cost letters" for their wives:
"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 criticized 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 group by another group member."
