Terence T. Gorski - Getting Love Right: Learning the Choices of Healthy Intimacy

ITS NEVER TOO LATE TO LEARN HOW TO LOVE

When you fall in love you may be repeating bad relationship habits that you learned growing up or in a previous unhealthy relationship. No matter what your history, Getting Love Right can explain how to build and maintain healthy intimacy, including:

How to recognize if you are in a compulsive, apathetic, or healthy relationship

How to become a person who is capable of healthy intimacy

How to choose a healthy partner

If you are in a relationship or want to be in one, Terence T. Gorski will teach you that love isnt just something that happenslove is something you can learn.

If I had read this book 20 years ago then my relationship history would be very different and not nearly as painful. It has helped me in my current relationship.

John Lee, author of The Flying Boy

[An] exciting new approach to relationship therapy...

Claudia Black, Ph.D., author of It Will Never Happen to Me and Double Duty

TERENCE T. GORSKI, M.A., N.C.A.C. II, is the president of CENAPS Corporation, a consultation and training firm that specializes in alcoholism, drug dependence, and mental-health services. He lives in Flossmoor, Illinois.

Cover design by Jackie Seow

Cover illustration by John Nelson

A Touchstone Book

Published by Simon & Schuster

New York

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TOUCHSTONE

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New York, NY 10020
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Copyright 1993 by Terence T. Gorski

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

TOUCHSTONE is a registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

Designed by Songhee Kim

Library of Congress-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 0-671-86415-7

ISBN: 978-1-4391-4747-4 (eBook)

T his book would not have been possible without the help and support of a number of key people in my life. My lifelong friend, Joe Trioani, provided invaluable support during the writing process.

Janet Voss, Executive Director of Cenaps Corporation, kept my business running while I was preoccupied with writing. Her support in maintaining day-to-day operations was invaluable. Karen Plath helped extensively by dedicating literally weeks of her life to typing and retyping revisions of this book.

There are four special people I wish to thank. My literary agents, Candace Fuhrman and Theo Gund, made it all possible. They listened to a tape of a lecture on intimacy and recovery, became excited about the concept, and aggressively sought me out. Without their vision, encouragement, and at times outright pressure, this book would never have been written.

Two editors, Carol Ranalli and Barbara S. Brauer, provided invaluable assistance and rescued me from one of the worst cases of writers block I have ever experienced. With their help, the manuscript was radically revised and reorganized into the form that you now see.

Most of all, I would like to acknowledge the thousands of people in this nation who have decided to break the cycle of dysfunctional intimacy. It is only through the widespread support of twelve-step recovery programs and other self-help groups that this book is possible. Without the interest and excitement generated by my initial lectures, I would never have written Getting Love Right.

O n January 17, 1987, more than 600 people crowded a convention center in San Diego, California to hear me speak. The group was different from any I had addressed before. Many sat clutching Teddy bears. Some appeared alone and lost in their thoughts, while others talked openly and enthusiastically with one another. What they shared in common was an inability to make their love relationships work. They had come to this lecture for one reason: to learn how to get love right.

As I stood behind the podium looking out at the audience, I asked myself, How can I reach them? How can I say something that can make a difference?

I was uncomfortable because I felt I was essentially there by accident. Counseling and lecturing on intimacy and relationship building was not my chosen profession. I received my formal training as a counselor in chemical addiction and specialized in the treatment of relapse-prone peoplechemically dependent individuals who, no matter how hard they try, just cant stay sober. My work in relapse prevention had led me to the discovery that a lot of people who relapse do so because of problems with relationship and intimacy issues. As I worked with these clients and their spouses or partners, I developed techniques to help them understand and overcome the unique relationship style that recovering chemically dependent people seem to have.

I worked with this model over a number of years both as a supervisor of other therapists and as a therapist in my own private practice. I didnt think the skills and concepts I had developed were anything very special or unique. I was simply working with what patients were telling me about their relationships and the problem solving they did in therapy.

In 1984, I was traveling around the country lecturing about relapse prevention as well as talking a little about relationships, but relationships were not my major focus. Then Fate intervened in the person of Donna Marie Swain. I was scheduled to speak at a conference at Scripps Hospital in San Diego. Donna Marie, in charge of the conference schedule, called and asked me to do a keynote talk on intimacy.

I explained that I worked on chemical dependency and on relapse; I didnt do intimacy. I didnt have any interest in doing intimacy because I didnt think I had anything to contribute in that area.

The next thing I knew, Donna Marie had mailed out 35,000 brochures announcing that I was doing a luncheon keynote address on intimacy. Caught in what seemed to be a no-win situation, I brought out my old notes, went to San Diego, stood up, and did a forty-five-minute keynote speech on intimacy. I said, This is dysfunctional intimacy, this is healthy intimacy. Heres how you get from here to there. I sat down and I forgot about it.

Unknown to me, that lecture was audio-taped by a professional company and was offered for sale. Overnight that tape was duplicated and spread throughout southern California.

Two years later, I was home in Chicago continuing my work in relapse prevention, completely unaware of the tape. I received a call from the San Diego Chapter of Adult Children of Alcoholics. They were planning their first annual ACA conference. The woman said, Wed really like you to speak at our conference.

I said, Thank you very much, but Im not recovering in ACA. I think youve got the wrong Terry Gorski.

Well, we dont want you to do a recovery talk. We want you to do your lecture on intimacy.

I said, You dont understand. I dont do intimacy.

She said, Well, weve got this wonderful tape. We want you to do that presentation.

I said, What tape? I dont know that I have tape out. Its probably not me.