How Rachel Uchitel Realized She Was a 'Love Addict' After Tiger Woods Scandal

Rachel Uchitel's life blew up when Tiger Woods' affair with her made national headlines -- but it was another moment in the spotlight that also had an impact on her love life going forward.

After noticing how "wrapped up" she got in the attention Woods showed her at the time -- a time where she was suffering from "low self-esteem" as a result of past "trauma" -- Dr. Drew Pinsky helped her realize she was a "love addict."

"I will say that that is a very real thing that I think people don't have awareness about," she said in a new interview with Us Magazine. "It's where people mistake intensity for love and people sort of look to someone else to gain credibility for not feeling credible inside."

"Something about myself, which I hope people can understand is that when somebody of a high caliber looks at you and as everyone else wants to know that person, and that [person] only wants you, that's the ultimate kind of credibility for yourself," she added. "And how do you say no to that?"

Pinsky talked her into appearing on his reality show, "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," in 2010 -- a year after the Woods scandal broke. For Uchitel, the reality show was no joke.

"He said, 'You are a love addict.' And I was like, 'That is a joke.' I'm not going to go into rehab with people that have real addictions, like heroin and alcoholism or whatever, and say that I'm a love addict," she recalled. "And he was like, 'Come on my show, you have a problem,' and I did it."

Though surrounded by cameras, Uchitel said being on the show brought her addiction "into the light" -- and she used what she learned on the series to do "a lot of work" on herself from there.

"It's been really hard for me and my present relationships. I have to watch myself very closely because as a recovering addict ... I have to constantly watch who I'm getting into relationships with," she added. "Hence why I'm not married. I keep falling into traps of, you know, either [relationships] that are just maybe [the] wrong timing or people that are not the right people for me at the, at the right time."

Following the Tiger scandal, Uchitel was also linked to married actor David Boreanaz, before she married Matt Hahn in 2011. The two welcomed a daughter the following year, before the couple split in 2013.