Sex Addiction Expert Craig Gross Sees Warning in Tiger Woods Case
The publicity surrounding Tiger Woods’ reported treatment for sex addiction should raise public awareness of the problem’s causes, including the fact that pornography is now just a click away on the Internet, according to anti-porn crusader and XXXchurch founder Craig Gross.
“We don’t know if Tiger Woods struggled with online pornography, but most sex addicts do. It’s often where their habit starts,” said Gross, whose web-based XXXchurch ministry has helped hundreds of thousands of people combat pornography addiction. “You no longer have to surreptitiously buy a porn magazine from a newsstand or go through the embarrassment of renting a porn movie. There are 420 million pages of pornographic material online, and that is fueling the sex addiction problem.”
The National Council on Sex Addiction estimates that 25 million Americans visit cyber-sex sites from one to 10 hours a week, with 18 to 24 million people in the U.S. qualifying as sex addicts. The Internet Filter Review estimates that 25% of all search engine requests are pornography-related, nearly 43% of all Internet users view porn, and there are 1.5 billion peer-to-peer pornography downloads per month.
Gross recommends using an Internet filtering program like InternetSafety.com’s Safe Eyes to protect users from the lure of online sexual content. Safe Eyes allows ‘accountability partners’ such as a spouse, friend, pastor or mentor assigned by an anti-porn advocacy group to block Internet access altogether at specific times such as the highly vulnerable after-midnight hours, check online usage logs for attempts to access sites with sexual content, and receive alerts by phone or email when users attempt to bypass the filter.
Accountability partners can be given administrative control of Safe Eyes so that they can adjust settings and access usage logs from their own computers. Users can be prevented from removing the software from their computers by asking InternetSafety.com to scramble their passwords or by configuring the product to split passwords with accountability partners.
“Any addict needs tools to fight his or her addiction. The use of Safe Eyes to help pornography addicts break the habit has been growing steadily since we introduced the product in 2003,” said InternetSafety.com CEO Forrest Collier. “Intervening in this way can help people avoid the spiraling effects of sexual addiction.”
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The cynical side of me says that Wood’s treatment isn’t for him so much as for his reputation. Spend a little time in therepy, then come out with the announcement that he is ‘cured.’ Problem solved, reputation saved. He isn’t really a cheat – he was just under the influence of a now-corrected medical problem.
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I clearly can’t speak regarding someone else, however I believe all of the press that this saga is receiving is absurd. Tiger cheated on his spouse, not the game of golf. The only people the guy really should have to appease is going to be his loved ones and sponsors. It is actually obvious why he must apologize and try to make amends with Elin. His sponsors have invested plenty of cash marketing the guy. In addition to that, this is a confidential family concern and they ought to be permitted to handle this behind closed doors. The public just doesn’t have the right to find out every small detail with regards to everybody’s life, no matter what their public figure status.
“The cynical side of me says that Wood’s treatment isn’t for
him so much as for his reputation. Spend a little time in therepy, then come out with the announcement that he is ‘cured.’ Problem solved, reputation saved. He isn’t really a cheat – he was just under the influence of a now-corrected medical problem.”
And I think we need to stop here and make the following point: an “addiction” is a behavior that a] the subject detests and wants to quit, and b] is apparently unable to quit, and c] he/she despairs of his/her ability to quit.
It’s certainly not clear that Tiger is an addict. He’s definitely been extremely badly behaved. If Elin was aware of this beforehand, she didn’t handle it well … he should’ve been tossed out for his bad behavior at the first sign and the pressure shouldn’t have been allowed to build to the point that she (ostensibly) took a club to him and chased him into the streets.
Apparently, he was allowed to behave badly until she broke. Now, I suppose it’s possible that this behavior was unknown to Mrs. Woods until the incident. Generally, a man will respond to the negative consequences of his actions … but if there are no consequences until the “straw that breaks the camel’s back” and then divorce happens, it’s too late for the marriage, or his reputation.
Another casualty of sin.
I am the wife of a man who has had a sexual addiction for 30 years. I was unaware of his addiction and subsequent adultery until recently. It seems impossible to believe that the man you love can carry on a secret life that you are unaware of, yet other than a few red flags, it happened to me. He is now in recovery which includes an accountability partner, internet filter which reports his activity on the internet to his accountability partner, a support group, a counselor, a church that has been very supportive to both him and me, and his complete submission to the Lord. Though the scars of his betrayal run deep I have, through the power of God, been able to forgive him and continue to love him. Our marriage is healing. I want others to know who have a spouse with a sexual addiction it is possible to rebuild your marriage but only through a close walk with the one who died for our sins, our Savior and Lord. The other thing I want others to be aware of is that my husband’s walk into the deep darkness of sexual sin began when he was exposed as a young boy to pornography. So many of the men in his support group can attest to similar experiences. I caution you parents and grandparents to guard your children’s eyes against the images of lust that get engraven on their minds.