Earlier this week we got the decidedly un-shocking news that 'Jersey Shore' star Mike "The Situation" Sorrentino is spending his hiatus from the show holed up in rehab.

And while his rep initially said it was for the trite "exhaustion" (seriously, when will they stop trotting that out and expecting us to believe it?), the truth is now leaking out.

Sources say the Sitch taking his R&R at Utah's famed Cirque Lodge, which, for those of you not in the know, seems to have replaced the Betty Ford Clinic as the rehab locale of choice for the modern rich and famous.

He himself said he was there to recover from a prescription pain pill problem, but alliteration aside, there seems to be more to it than that. People who really shouldn't be talking are saying he first went to another facility to detox from alcohol, and that he's being treated at Cirque for both booze and pills.

Insiders report Sorrentino has been "very open" with other patients about his alcoholism, even telling them how his frequent club appearances compounded the problem.

But this latest development puts MTV in quite a pickle. 'Jersey Shore' has just been re-upped for another season, and part of its stock-in-trade is showing the drunken exploits of its stars. Snooki's newly-announced bun in the oven was already going to put a big damper on that (her judgement is demonstrably bad, but even we don't think she'd throw back 40s while she's knocked up).

If Sitch stays on the wagon too, exactly how much fun will he be to watch? And if he dives head-first back into a bottle during filming, will the network take the blame or even be accused of enabling his relapse to attract viewers?

No one knows for sure. The cast and crew are said to be happy he's cleaning himself up -- especially since he clearly needed to -- and taping for season six doesn't start until this summer, so we'll all have to wait and see.

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