Soberpotamus

Has anyone experienced what it's like to realize you have nearly nothing in common with your family? I'm about to turn 35 tomorrow and having a bit of reflection time going on the past week as I'm also 30 days sober now. This family revelation is nothing new... I've felt like an outsider since I left home at the age of 17... but I've never felt like such a complete stranger. I don't even desire to see them at all. My Dad is still alive and so is my mom's Dad... other than those two, I'm just not close to anyone in my family. My Dad and I have actually never been close... he and my mom divorced when I was 3 and I'm an only child. I'm closest to my mom's Dad who's in his mid 80's and won't be around much longer... that's what's so depressing. Once he's gone I really have no one left I want to have contact with.

Is this ok?? LOL. Is anyone else experiencing this?

There's absolutely no one in my family I relate to... and I mean on hardly any level at all... other than they knew me as a child and young person years ago. I feel like my Dad is a complete stranger.

My family is one of those families that want to protect one another from the truth... no one is really honest. I can hardly deal with that. I'm just the opposite. Even as a drinker I was sometimes brutally honest about things... except for my drinking, of course. I covered it up from my family most of the time... but never would flat out deny it if asked.

Should I just carry on with my life and just not worry that I don't want to be around them? I just find it horribly frustrating to be around family members who I can't be open with. Not a single person in my family has ever mentioned my Mother after she died... Not a single one has expressed any kind of concern or emotion. Not a single phone call... I've been ignored, just as she was ignored by them. It enrages me.

Anna

It sounds like you're starting to deal with some of the emotions that come along with recovery.

I am not close with my dad, brother, nephew, either. I see them when I need to, though I talk to my dad on the phone regularly to check in as he lives a long ways away. However, I am so, so blessed to love my husband's family dearly. My sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law, neice and nephews are fabulous people.

My advice is to follow your heart and keep people in your life who love you and who you love. You shouldn't be around people who enrage you, why would you want to be?

LifeRecovery

Jennie

Maybe it is the name (mine is spelled with a Y), maybe it is the age (I will be 35 in Nov), but I have been dealing with this feeling a lot in the last few weeks.

For me I think it has been because I am stripping myself of the denial that I have lived with for so long.

I suspect because I don't know what to do with this right now that I just need to acknowledge the feelings, talk about them and not do anything with them right now.

DaveO

Yes I can relate

Around the same time for me

I still experience it.

This is what I have done still to this date.

I am sorry about your mother, and don't know the cicumstances of her departure from you.

I took care of my mother while getting sober until the fight with cancer took her.

My family all dumped me because I would not stick her in a home, and dish out her belongings before she was even gone. I let my mother pass on in her own house where she was comfortable.

I have only checked on 1 family member which is my father who had an accident, and the family was trying to stick him in a home so they could take his house, and belongings.
Luckily I was notified that the family was trying to do this. As much as I hated to see my father, I still cared about his well being enough to stop at the hospital and ask him what he wanted, and where he wanted to go.
This was after I had not seen him in over 6 years at my mothers funeral that not 1 family member helped with or even heard from them to this date.

I still miss the family gatherings that I remember from when I was real young, but I now have my wife and little one to start the new family traditions of our own.

It is a hard choice, but what you typed sums up how I felt, and yes it hurts, but I made the right choice.

The negativity of the family is gone, and I am still enjoying my sober life

coffeenut

I think it is okay. Maybe even healthy.

EmeraldRose

It's funny, because I have a huge extented family. Many many cousins throughout the united states. I have 2 older uncles down south (one in alabama) and relatives in almost every state.
Through the years I have left the comfort of family for the comfort of booze. I didn't keep in touch with most of my cousins and have no legit reason why except that I had some make believe resentment for them that I can't explain. I didn't care about going to family get togethers and didn't care to keep in touch.
Now...now that I am sober I see how fragile life can be. I see that people grow, age and pass on so quickly. Life unfolds before our eyes and if we are in a drunken stupor, frankly, we don't care. There is no emotion. No empathy. No concern for others.
I missed our last family union this July 4th because of a new job and I didn't want to spend the money to go 1488 miles home. I realize I need to reconnect with others in my family. I realize that maybe sending a general "Hi how are you?" email might just make that contact. If people are used to the alienation they will let you remain that way. People grow and change...you are and I am...maybe reaching out to your family will reconnect you if you have something in common or not.
Try connecting...I'm going to.

Reset

I have a pretty turbulent family life, to the point that I moved away in part to be done with the drama.

But regardless of the situation, I just try to shed any negativity that comes my way. Anger, sadness, disappointment, whatever, are just negative emotions not worth clinging to. Flick them off like a bug and move on.

Doesn't mean you can't reach out like ER says, but if you do and it doesn't work out, you tried, good for you, now move on. And if it results in something positive, even better.

Guess that's a long way of saying, yeah don't worry and carry on with your life.

michelle01

I have a big extended family, nothing to do with most of them, even though they don't live far away. They've never really been involved with my life. Some have made half hearted attempts at reconnecting, but I can't really rely on them.

I've had some very difficult years with my parents, even though we are now more civil, it's as if everyone has to make a conscious attempt to be civil and nice to each other. It's still not a conventional mother-daughter or father-daughter relationship. It may not ever be, they're very set in their ways and not going to change, but we've reached the point where we can accept and respect each other maybe.

My best friend is much older than me, the same age as my mother, I probably look at her more like a mother than my natural mother in fact. My natural mother had a host of her own problems when I was young, and wasn't able to do the role much. So maybe that is a kind of substitute for me.

yogaisland

I've been getting closer with the members of my family that have always made me feel good, and I've distanced myself from the ones that do not make me feel good. For me this means reconnecting with my dad's side of the family - have always gotten together with them on Christmas, but I've made more of an effort to keep in touch and even flew up this summer to see everyone. And then my mom's brother called last month and left a message saying it had been a long time. Yes it had, 8 years in fact since my mother's funeral. He said he was sitting with my granddad and they wanted to hear from me. I have seen my granddad as recently as a couple years ago. The problem is that my uncle actually went to the police after my mother died and tried to start a criminal case against my father (!) My mother did what she did to herself. He also tried to bribe the funeral home to embalm and bury my mother after I had already been there and signed papers to have her body cremated (which was what she'd always said she wanted.) Anyway, I was feeling guilt after he called, thinking I need to contact him and my granddad because they are family, and I brought it up in my next therapy session. My therapist said certainly NOT, there was no reason to contact people that are toxic. I mentioned that my granddad had always been nothing but good to me, even though I know that he was horribly abusive to his children and was a raging alcoholic (he's been sober for my whole life though). But she said, yes, he may have been good to you and you had some good times together, but those good times have already happened and there is no reason to contact him just out of obligation. I'm wording it badly, she put it in a way that really sounded right and made me feel okay with shutting that door in my life.

So anyway (sorry I always spiral off into long winded stories about myself) you should do what you need to do. Build relationships with the people that make you feel good, and put the people that don't in the past.

Soberpotamus

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for your replies. Each one has given me a perspective on this situation, and each one has allowed me to open my mind to it a little more. It's still early for me to act one way or another... but I do hope that when the time comes I'll make wise decisions.

ajangel

Both my parents are gone. I do not keep in contact with any of my aunts or uncles. I have 2 sisters and 3 brothers. I only choose to talk to one of my sisters. I have nothing in common with anyone else. The others in my family I choose not to communicate with. They are worse alcoholics than I ever dreamed of being. I am surprised they are still alive. I have even went so far as to changing my phone number so my other siblings couldn't call me in the middle of the night drunk and belligerent. Sometimes its for the best. I don't miss them. Just because they are family doesn't mean you have to like them.

LawMama

I second the person who said it sounds like you are dealing with the rush of emotions that happens to a lot of us in early sobriety. I know it happened to me.....all of the sudden I had to actually feel stuff I hadn't ever felt sober. A lot of it had to do with my family, too.

I am not as close with my family since I got sober, since my family all drink to a level that I can't tolerate. And yes, I just go on my merry way, but I am kind to them and I do have a relationship with my mother. That relationship just has to occur outside peak drinking hours, and we are fine. I find that I am not lonely the way I used to be because I have made wonderful and supportive friends in AA.

Just my experience. Congrats on 30 days! For me that was the toughest!

bcboy

Hey Jennie

Family can be the best thing or the worst thing in ones life. If ones family is causing pain then you need to remove yourself from that.

Family can be what ever you wish it to be. Be it your close friends, Boy Friend and even your 3 cats

At the end of the day consider yourself lucky if you even have one close friend that you could consider to be part of your own personal family.

I left my family at 18 and have not seen them in over 15 years. They brought me into this world in the worst possible way and continued on throughout my childhood with a very dangerous and highly illegal live style.

They have 4 grand kids that they have never meet and from what I can tell have 0 interest in ever meeting.

But the great thing is I now have my own personal family of close friends, wife, kids and my dogs that I am thankful for every moment I am alive.

My parents are living in their on personal hell of an existence that I want no part of.

Dee74

I'm not close to my family either - but it's only been in the last few years that I've accepted that and stopped trying to make my relationship into something it's not

It's ok that I'm who I am - & with who they are too.

I love my family - when it comes down to it, they are my family....but I don't get on well with them, and much of the time I don't understand them.

Sometimes I actively dislike some of them...and I'm sure the feelings mutual.

I wanted the Waltons or the Bradys lol - but it is what it is

D