Since getting sober my relationships have improved with all my family apart from my dad. That has been a real sticking point with me as far as my step work and things are concerned. I think it's because, even as a child, my time with my dad has been published based. And then as a teen we drank together, and on through my 20ies and 30ies. We had little / no contact with each other that wasn't in a pub for all that time. So now, I don't drink. I don't go in the pub so much, and neither does he (he moved to somewhere where there are very few bars). I suppose, as well, it's a bit like other drinking buddies, that when you're all drunk together you feel like comrades or a double act, and seeing each other sober just isn't the same. Some drinking buddies turn out to be friends in sobriety, but not many. When that's people in our family that can be disappointing.