“My sibling and I are estranged. How do I move forward?” (with Fern Schumer Chapman)
About the Episode
Sibling estrangement can create grief like no other, especially when addiction is part of the equation.
In this episode, Fern Schumer Chapman opens up about her 40-year estrangement from her brother, what it was like learning about his hidden alcohol use, and the profound emotional toll it took on her.
Fern’s story offers a raw look at the pain and complexities of sibling relationships affected by addiction. She shares how setting boundaries, in the face of addiction, sometimes means cutting ties—and the unique grief that comes with that decision.
Guest: Fern Schumer Chapman, journalist and author
Fern is an award-winning author, who released her most recent book, Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: Sibling Estrangement and the Road to Reconciliation, in 2021. She writes a blog on psychologytoday.com called "Brothers, Sisters, Strangers," and she co-hosts a podcast by the same name. Some of her blog posts are compiled in her most recent work, The Sibling Estrangement Journal: A Guided Exploration of Your Experience through Writing.
This episode will help you:
Gain practical tips for understanding and coping with the grief and emotional toll of sibling estrangement, particularly when addiction is a factor
Learn how to set healthy boundaries in difficult family dynamics while prioritizing your own emotional well-being.
Discover ways to find acceptance, healing and from estrangement
Identify if reconnecting is an option, and how to do so in a way that works for you
Watch Now
Episode Links
🎙 FERN SCHUMER CHAPMAN
About: https://fernschumerchapman.com/about-the-author/
📘 FERN’S BOOKS
Brothers, Sisters, Strangers: A guide to understanding, coping with, and healing from the unique pain of sibling estrangement.
The Sibling Estrangement Journal: A companion guide to help you make peace with your sibling relationship.
Check them out: https://fernschumerchapman.com/
Resources
💬 JOIN OUR SIBLING-FOCUSED COMMUNITY
Join our Facebook group, Siblings For Love of Recovery for:
Connect with other siblings
Share your own story in a safe space
Support for navigating the journey
🤳 CONNECT WITH FOR LOVE OF RECOVERY
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forloveofrecovery
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561542956095
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Fern: [00:00:00] There's so much more to sibling estrangement than simply not speaking to your only sibling. This is a chronic state of grief and you are mourning the living.
Dominique: Welcome to FLOR For Love and Recovery, where I'm your host, Dominique Dajer. Sibling relationships can be so unique, but they can become more complex when there's drug or alcohol use involved. If you find yourself questioning how to help, you're not alone.
Dominique: Every month we bring together stories that empower you to better navigate your sibling's addiction, offer a sense of connection, and provide fresh perspectives on understanding substance use and how to protect your peace. Join me on this journey in restoring hope and healing.
Dominique: [00:01:00] Building boundaries often come in many forms when there's addiction in the family.
Dominique: For some, this might mean estrangement. And if the family member is your sibling, emotions and family dynamics can become real complex. To help us navigate sibling estrangement, we have Fern Schumer Chapman, a journalist and author of the sibling estrangement journal, and the book "brothers, sisters, and stranger" where she guides siblings to understanding, coping with, and healing from the unique pain of sibling estrangement.
Dominique: Today, Fern will open up on her 40 year estrangement from her brother, the toll addiction played, and she'll offer practical advice for coping with grief and finding healing.
Dominique: Fern, thank you so much for being on the show today.
Fern: Great to be with you. Thank you.
Dominique: I'd love to start off with giving our listeners some clarity around what sibling estrangement is, and how that differs from being distant or detached from someone?
Fern: That's a great question. The term is rather gray.
Fern: And part of the reason it's so [00:02:00] gray is it's only in recent years come into our lexicon. The word itself means that there's a process where at least one family member voluntarily or intentionally distances themselves from another family member on an ongoing basis. Now, there are lots of ways to distance yourself.
Fern: For example, you can simply shut down emotional content so that you're only discussing what's The sports teams in your last travel adventure, you can completely shut down contact in total. You can move away and simply not have contact because you're no longer in a near proximity to your siblings. So there are lots of ways to do it. And in fact, one of the interesting things, Dominique, that happened to me during the process of writing this book is I got a letter from an old friend and he said, I see my brother at weddings and funerals. [00:03:00] Am I estranged? So he actually didn't have clarity.
Fern: Some people might call it a limited relationship. It's a matter of semantics. .
Fern: And the reality is that If you have this really dialed down relationship with somebody, yeah, you probably fall into the estrangement category.
Dominique: Right. And if we're talking about your relationship with your brother, which you get into in the book, you know, you mentioned that you guys have been estranged for 40 years or so.
Dominique: Can you share a little bit about how that estrangement started and when you first began to realize that the distance between you and him was becoming something more serious?
Fern: Well, I should preface all this by saying my brother and I are very different and we were never particularly close in childhood.
Fern: We were raised in a very toxic, dysfunctional home, which is a risk factor for estrangement. So we didn't have a lot to build on, but then he got married and I would [00:04:00] say he invested himself as he should in that relationship.
Fern: And little by little, I had less and less contact. Maybe our paths would cross at a family event or a funeral, but we were having less and less to say to each other. And the calls were reduced. And, in time I had no connection to him, his wife or his two sons.
Fern: When I had Children myself, this was especially painful because he's my only brother. So it meant I had lost many roles. I had lost the role of sister, sister in law, and my Children had no cousins on my side. So this is not just about losing my brother, this is a whole branch of the family.
Dominique: Absolutely. Like, I love that you mentioned when you have that one sibling, like I do, you kind of put a little bit more emphasis on that relationship or weight on that. and You began to talk a little bit about, losing the relationship, losing the relationship for your children, having [00:05:00] cousins on your side of the family.
Dominique: And for some as the estrangement continues, it becomes a constant state of grief of grieving somebody who's actually... alive.
Dominique: And in your case, you talk about in your book that your brother actually lived in the same neighborhood or in the same area as you, which can make it even more difficult.
Dominique: Can you talk a little bit more about what that was like knowing that your brother was alive and you're in this constant state of grief?
Fern: So I think you make a really important point and it's one that's largely under acknowledged.
Fern: and There's so much more to sibling estrangement than simply not speaking to your only sibling. This is a chronic state of grief and you are mourning the living.
Fern: And there's no closure to this. There's no negotiating when somebody dies, they're dead. You can't bring them back. There's no crack in the door, but when someone is in your universe, who has decided that you are no longer going to have a role in their lives.
Fern: First [00:06:00] of all, it creates a lot of grief because it's a profound rejection.
Fern: And secondly, you, constantly hope “maybe things will be different when...” and of course I did that for four years and “when” never came.
Fern: So, Sibling rejection ripples through many parts of life and identity, and it can affect your self-esteem, who you are, how you see yourself, your friendships, other social relationships, your well being, your ability to trust others. And then of course you get the family involved and you might have a civil war because people are deciding which side to be on.
Fern: And so I think it's really important to recognize that this is so much larger than, well, I just don't talk to my brother.
Dominique: Absolutely. Is there anything in particular that you would suggest they do when they're mourning a sibling who's physically present, but emotionally absent?
Dominique: Maybe they're still in their life, but they're not really there for [00:07:00] them or not to the degree that they were hoping and expecting that one might be.
Fern: There are lots of things you can do. It's important to, first of all, Take care of yourself. And this is no small thing.
Fern: How do you take care of yourself? You have to fill your life with the things that bring you joy and the relationships that are fulfilling to you. Some people find surrogates. You could argue whether or not that's enough, but many people do find other sister of sorts or brothers. And try to recover that relationship through that experience.
Fern: I coach those who are estranged. The hardest part is that people in this experience are caught between fantasy and hope. Accepting that this is your experience, and moving forward from that is the most [00:08:00] challenging aspect of this because people are constantly saying, “if only” and “maybe when...” and those times typically don't come.
Dominique: Absolutely. Especially if we're talking about the context of substance use and addiction, you know, there's a little bit of managing expectations that has to go on. And there's this hope that, if and when they enter recovery or treatment, there is this, restored hope for, their relationship, whatever that might look like.
Dominique: For me and my experience with my brother is like mourning the hopes and dreams that you might have had for them.
Dominique: My brother is younger. So we've always talked about what his future might look like. And sometimes You're mourning that, you're mourning the potential in them, and dealing really with, the reality of where they are.
Fern: I think there's another part of it too, which is this fantasy of who you wish they were. Not just the recovery. But I wish I had a brother who could be there, who could be loving and supportive, who could be present in my [00:09:00] life. And that's very painful and you look around you and you see others who have that. And it's a disappointment that that is not the story of your life.
Dominique: You mentioned in the beginning of your book that you didn't fully understand your estrangement from your brother. When you learned about his struggles with alcohol, how did that shift your perception of your relationship? Did understanding his addiction help you make more sense of the relationship, or did it actually complicate your emotions even more?
Fern: Well, it certainly complicated the reconciliation, because there ar e a lot of issues of trust when you are reconciling. Obviously, you're trying to rebuild a relationship in the wake of betrayal.
Fern: So, to realize that he has this other added issue, which is alcoholism. Is he going to slip back into that? Is that going to complicate the reconciliation? Can I really trust him? [00:10:00] And am I dealing with? Those are all questions that come up.
Fern: My brother had a vice and he was trying to hide it. And so a convenient way to hide it was to dial down the connections he had in his life so that nobody would know that he was drinking all the time. you know, The irony of my story is that I. personalized this for decades, got up in the morning, looked in the mirror and said, "what did I do?" "How can I fix this?" And ultimately, through the books and through my rebuilding of my relationship with him, I realized so much of this had nothing to do with anything I had said. And that was A shock because I had blamed myself for so many years.
Fern: And again, that plays into this whole self esteem issue.
Dominique: Absolutely. And That's a really difficult situation to have to be in. It's like this lack of understanding or closure that you're [00:11:00] just sitting with.
Dominique: You mentioned that your brother began to initiate this estrangement. Um, Was this really a verbal conversation that you had?
Dominique: Did he sit you down and say Fern? Or was it just him pulling back little by little by little until eventually there was limited to no contact?
Fern: Yeah. I don't think my brother's done anything that directly.
Fern: He just, has his fingers on the dials. That's the way I would describe it. And he just didn't call, didn't connect. I mean, people couldn't create boundaries by withdrawing and that's what he did.
Dominique: Yeah. I love this analogy of this dial because sometimes Depending on where we are in our life, the relationships we do have to like dial up or dial down the contact or the behaviors that we have with people, right?
Dominique: It's like dialing up our tone, depending on who we're speaking to. Especially when it comes to substance use, you might have to pull back or lean into a relationship depending on where they [00:12:00] are in their substance use or their recovery. There might be times where they're more accepting or more open to a conversation or relationship, not because they do or don't want to be just because, you know, the limitations of addiction.
Dominique: And I think that's an important factor to have to consider. when you're engaging is How are you willing to dial things up or pull things back depending on where your loved one is.
Fern: I think you're making such an interesting point because it's hard enough to sustain a sibling relationship that has baggage, on its own. But now you're talking about the added problem of somebody who's sometimes in an altered state. So who are you dealing with and how do you sustain that connection when he may be there for you one day, but the next day he's very different and much more drunk or withdrawn or in an altered state.
Dominique: I like to call it very Jekyll and Hyde.
Dominique: Because you don't really know when there's substance use, which [00:13:00] version of that person you might be interacting with. So there's a little bit of a heightened tension that forces you to be on your toes and enter a situation with a little bit of anxiety around who am I going to interact with?
Dominique: But I think having some clarity as to who this person is can give you some more understanding as to how you want to engage, how you want to communicate, or if you don't want to do so at all. You mentioned earlier that there's a little bit of a feeling of betrayal in this experience.
Dominique: Sometimes detaching from a sibling can feel like a betrayal. Yet for people who are on the giving end of an estrangement or initiating it, it might be the only option for them. Maybe it's a way to protect oneself.
Dominique: What are some signs that detachment might actually be the best option for someone in that situation?
Fern: I think that you're making a really important point. Some relationships simply are too toxic, too injurious, to sustain. If you find yourself constantly insulted, [00:14:00] constantly betrayed, manipulated, abused, these are reasons you do not want to stay in the relationship.
Fern: It's too erratic.
Dominique: And I think It really comes down to understanding what are you willing to engage with? What are you willing to, continue doing to sustain this relationship or you'd rather just have no contact whatsoever?
Fern: If it's all one sided, which a lot of these relationships become and you're making all the effort and the other person is making very little. It's time to face reality.
Dominique: Yeah, absolutely.
Dominique: There's often a taboo surrounding sibling estrangement, especially when addiction is involved.
Dominique: If you're the parent, you're used to having both of your kids at a family function or a gathering. What do you think families can do to ease into that adjustment and support the person who is present, can better understand and address these kinds of shifts without judgment?
Fern: . This is [00:15:00] such a tough question.
Fern: Estrangements tend to metastasize like a cancer. My mother she wanted to sustain relationships, of course, with both children. But if she chose to go one way or the other, she felt she was betraying the other.
Fern: And of course she wanted relations with her grandchildren. I resented the fact that she would not take a stance. And I'm not sure that was fair on my part, but, I was so hurt. I wanted some support and that's where the metastasism occurs. then I'm resentful that you're going to his party and you're not saying, "Hey, you should invite your sister."
Dominique: I think sometimes it's a matter of just staying present with the person who is in front of you, regardless of which sibling or person that might be. And at least in my experience is, letting the siblings figure it out.
Dominique: How often do you actually find that to be helpful?
Fern: In terms of parents meddling, [00:16:00] that's a really dangerous territory and you do not want to step into it. You have adult children, I'm assuming, and they get to negotiate their own relationships, not because you've kind of crack the whip and said, you need to have one.
Fern: It's like a poison, it does spread, and nobody knows how to manage it. Naturally, resentments occur when one person, a parent, takes the other sibling's side.
Fern: It's really complicated. Because we didn't say this at the outset, that this is very common. About one in three people suffer from some sort of estrangement in the family. Because nobody talks about it, and there's so much stigma surrounding the topic that it's almost its own me too movement. And so you're not alone in this. And that's actually the value of podcasts like this and books like what I've written because suddenly people think that they've been alone [00:17:00] and discover that in fact many families are, having these problems. It's a very tough question to answer, and it's exactly why estrangement is so difficult in the families.
Dominique: There might be situations where you might unexpectedly run into your sibling .
in 2023, I was gathering with my family for the holidays and I hadn't seen my brother in I don't know, three or four months or so. And I got a call from my mom that he was going to be at our Christmas dinner and I was already on my way there.
Dominique: And while we were not formally estranged, we just really had not seen each other. There wasn't one particular thing that initiated it, it was just like where he was in his addiction.
Dominique: Have you ever been in a situation with your brother where you were forced to interact with him when you least expected it?
Fern: Yes and in those cases, We were kind of on opposite sides of the room once in a while fish eyeing each other. I was not at that point inclined to talk to him because I felt [00:18:00] he didn't want it. And I sensed his wall.
Fern: There are a lot of ways you can handle this. You can go up, you can say, hello, how are you?
Fern: You know, have that limited connection, what have you been doing lately?
Fern: Or, you can avoid them, although that's awkward too. I think it's better to acknowledge. And then if it gets uncomfortable quickly, have your escape hatch plan. These are very uncomfortable moments. You're not going to resolve anything at that point. Setting, you know, you're just gonna be exposed.
Dominique: Yeah, I totally agree. A couple of months ago in our December episode, we spoke about navigating family addiction during the holidays, and one of the things that came up was around thinking about what's the expectation or what do you want to get out of the conversation beforehand.
Dominique: If you have a heads up that so and so might be there Thinking about, what do I want to say to my sibling? How do I want this interaction to, go? I [00:19:00] think that might help, like you said, creating an exit strategy or some kind of plan, or if you don't want to interact with them or, you know, for whatever reason, you do want to avoid them altogether.
Dominique: I think doing whatever you can to prepare, can be helpful. You know, of course, sometimes there's a little bit of like the spontaneity. You don't always know what's going to happen, but I think doing a little bit of that prep work on where you are and what you want to do and what you're expecting to get out of it can provide a little bit of clarity when you're walking into like this unknown situation.
Fern: Yeah. And that's what you were deprived of. and I don't know if that was intentional on your parents part. They may not have wanted to give you the heads up, but if you don't have enough time to prepare, it's really stressful.
Dominique: Absolutely. When you were in the thick of your estrangement with your brother, how did you find acceptance? Was there anything in particular that helped you personally navigate some of that? And did you ever have moments where you thought that reconciliation was still possible, or did you eventually find peace in accepting [00:20:00] that this is what it was and what it would always be?
Fern: I had no illusions. I never thought my brother and I would reconcile. Reconciliation and estrangement in these relationships is often cyclical. In my experience with my brother, it was pretty consistent. We reconciled successfully for about 15 years.
Fern: And the reason I mentioned this to you is my mother passed. back in January and he and I have had a much rockier go of things ever since then. And that's actually very common. When the last parent passes, you lose the glue and there are a lot of issues that arise, such as estate issues and financial issues, and they can be very divisive.
Fern: So, I want to emphasize that this cycling is not uncommon.
Dominique: There's a lot of ebbing and flowing in a relationship and very much the same when it comes to estrangement. [00:21:00] When it comes to addiction, that's also a journey that, has its ups and downs.
Dominique: You have to be prepared that this relationship might continue as is, or it'll have its highs and lows and there might be times again, where you have to lean in or lean out of a relationship, or change the way and patterns that you communicate with your sibling.
Fern: Right. And so people think, Oh, well, you were estranged and then you reconciled and you're fine. Well, no, I'm still negotiating this difficult relationship, which has a lot of old baggage and issues. And it often the problems. Bubble up once in a while.
Dominique: After all these years, now that you and your brother seem to be reconnected, do you believe that healing from estrangement is possible even without ever having to reconcile?
Fern: Yes, I think it's possible not to reconcile and have peace. The opposite of estrangement is not reconciliation. [00:22:00] It's peace. So the question is, can you achieve peace in the wake of estrangement? And my answer is absolutely. It involves letting go of any expectations, any hopes, pursuing your own self care and wellbeing so that you can have the best life possible, regardless of whether you have this loved one in your life or not.
Dominique: Absolutely. And That might be easier said than done. I can already imagine like how challenging that might be, especially if you're in the thick of estrangement and this is new, having to cope with the idea of never talking to your sibling again, and finding peace with that and acceptance is definitely a process.
Fern: you know, You really have to assess, am I better off with or without this relationship. Some of these relationships just take such a toll on your wellbeing that you have to let go.
Fern: When I started to do the research for brothers, sisters, strangers, I had no idea there were actually risk [00:23:00] factors for estrangement.
Fern: And so, family trauma, parental favoritism is a huge one and that or communication skills if families don't know how to negotiate differences and they don't model those skills in the family, children don't have a clue. And as a result, they're left to their own devices which usually aren't very successful family values judgments and choices. There's something called the family myth, or the family identity, and that is this idea of who are we.
Fern: And if a sibling or a child, strays from the family identity, they are often cast out.
Fern: So for example, there are a lot of addiction and money, mental health issues that arise. if you, marry somebody who's nothing like the family, if you're somebody with religious differences, opposite political views , these put strains on these [00:24:00] relationships.
Fern: In the people I coach, I would say in 90 percent of the cases, there's a narcissist in the mix.
Fern: Now, I don't mean somebody who's a full blown narcissistic personality disordered person. I mean, they have some very extreme narcissistic traits where they don't want to take responsibility for their actions, and, they're very judgmental and absolute.
Fern: There are very perilous moments in a sibling's life, and they have to do with the various life stages when family members roles are redefined, and those turning points include adolescence, when one sibling often goes off to college, Marriage, and that's a real big one.
Dominique: Yeah. And It seems like one of the main underlying things that we're talking about too, is like the family dynamics and like the roles that we're playing. And it seems like in each of those scenarios, the person who is like the odd one out for lack of a better term [00:25:00] becomes the scapegoat, right?
Dominique: It may be they're the ones that's being blamed for everything. Maybe they're the one that, is working on their own healing. And they're building this boundary and they're pulling back from their immediate family.
Dominique: If a parent is noticing that there is some kind of distance or some kind of detachment or some kind of strain between their children, whether they're adult or maybe they're adolescents.
Dominique: What is something that you think they can do to actually foster some kind of change, whether that's within them or within the dynamic between their children?
Fern: You have to be really careful with that, and how much you are willing to engage in a conversation about the sibling because you're already triangulating and that is a dangerous pattern.
Fern: I think what you have to do is say, "I'm not willing to discuss your sibling. And if you really want to know these things, I encourage you to have a conversation with [00:26:00] them."
Dominique: Yeah, I agree. I also think having an awareness of what is occurring between your two children and approaching the conversation with a little bit of Curiosity if your child is coming to you and explaining to you, "this is what's going on..." "this is how I'm feeling." And, just understanding and accepting that this is the reality for your one child. Right. And maybe approaching the other relationship with just as much curiosity and, acceptance that. they'll figure it out when they're ready.
Fern: Yeah, it's, it's a very tricky spot to be in and, um, there's a great danger that you're going to get dragged into the divide, the abyss.
Dominique: I agree. Was there anything in particular with your mother and your relationship with your brother that either aided or made the relationship even more strained?
Fern: I think I was rather short sighted and wishing that she would take a stance [00:27:00] and not go to his events. And insist that I be invited.
Fern: Now that I'm a little bit older and looking back on all this, I see how untenable that was and how unrealistic it was for me to expect that of her. don't know that there's a good situation for the parent.
Fern: The parent is in a terrible spot. They love both their Children or all their Children, and they don't want to be deprived of those relationships and certainly granted relationships with grandchildren. So they're trying this very fine line, this tight rope of sustaining relations with everyone involved.
Fern: And that's why I keep coming back to this idea. I'm not sure you should say anything or do anything because it only drags you into it. It's really one of the most difficult positions that a parent could find themselves in.
Fern: [00:28:00] Those who are thinking about reconciliation, if there's the potential for that, they really have to ask themselves some hard questions. And one of them is, why is this relationship important to me? Not to my family, but To me, does my family member want to rebuild this relationship as much as I do?
Fern: Because if this is one sided, it'll never work. Can I set aside the anger and the pain and the resentment that led to the break in the first place and create a new pattern of relating in the future? Do I want to really resume this relationship if I discover that nobody's changed? And do I have the time and energy, emotional resilience and support of the other loved ones to reconcile and rebuild the relationship? If you come up with The answer, yes, yes, yes, you want to do it, you have to sit down together, and face to face, listen without interrupting, [00:29:00] without challenging each other's stories.
Fern: you have to sit down together, and by the way, this is based on what's called the dignity model, and it is used with, parties who endured a genocide.
Fern: Of course, the one goal is to seek understanding, and everybody agrees that reconciliation can't happen unless there's genuine listening. You have to acknowledge with empathy and other, why, in other words, active listening the person's hurt and anger and alienation and give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that their intentions are sincere and trustworthy.
Fern: You have to stress and act on your willingness and desire and hope that you can create a mutual bond And the hardest part about all of this is letting go of the anger. That's really tough after you've been betrayed so many times.
Dominique: The acceptance as well, right? Depending on wherever they are in that journey or wherever things seem to net out is the acceptance part.
Fern: Right. Not all [00:30:00] boundaries and distance are bad. Well being with a good, solid boundary.
Dominique: And I think Sometimes those boundaries are going to be moved around, right, depending on where you are in the relationship. Like you said, those estrangements can be cyclical.
Fern: I don't know that there's an experience that holds more grief than sibling estrangement. It's really unacknowledged, and as a result, not only do people feel so sad, but they feel unsupported. They feel very alone. And so there's great value in talking about it because Little by little as this, as more and more people learn about this experience, they understand number one, they're not alone. And it is a terrible experience of grief.
Fern: So I've been working with the same [book] agent for over 20 years and she and I go out to lunch whenever I go to New York [00:31:00] and, she and I had lunch together and she said, so what's going on with you and I started telling her this whole story of how I hadn't been speaking to my brother for decades. And suddenly for a number of reasons, he and I had been reintroduced to one another and how bizarre that was because I hardly knew who he was.
Fern: And, she was absolutely engaged and fascinated. And she said to me, would you write about this? And I said, yes, I think I could. I mean, I had to talk to my brother and find out if that would be okay with him. But anyway, we got the proposal together and we found an editor and the editor went to the sales group at Viking Penguin and introduced the book and the topic to a group of about 40 people. And after she spoke about sibling estrangement and why it's important and some of the topics you and I have addressed [00:32:00] here, the group was silent and nobody said a word. And finally, somebody said, I don't talk to my sibling.
Fern: I don't talk to my sister. I don't talk to my brother. And they started to have this conversation, which could have been a sibling estrangement support group, as they sorted through some of their own issues. And they recognized that that was a problem. It means there must be a lot of us out there, and it would probably be a book that would be well received.
Dominique: So interesting to see how something so niche like Sibling Estrangement can have such a broad and impactful experience and reaction on other people, right? Like something that you might not think about, but I think the more we have these conversations, the more we can shed a light on these untold stories.
Fern: You know, when I started writing and talking about estrangement, everybody was like, estrangement? What does that really mean? The book came out during COVID [00:33:00] 2021. And, since then there has been a lot of attention to breakdowns in relationships, parental alienation, So it, the culture has changed as we have begun to understand that these relationships break down, and, Cause a lot of grief.
Dominique: Absolutely. I think today we got into a huge conversation around dynamics, sibling estrangement, how to heal from those estrangements. We've covered a lot of ground and I want to let our listeners know if they want to learn more about sibling estrangement and sibling dynamics, they can definitely get your book brothers, sisters, strangers.
Dominique: I will be linking that in the description of the episode. So I just want to thank you so much Fern and for coming onto the show today, and opening up around your personal experience with your brother, your mom, and also, what this experience really means for siblings.
Fern: My pleasure.
Dominique: [00:34:00] Thanks for listening to this episode of For Love Recovery. If you enjoyed this episode or know somebody who might, please leave a comment and share it. You can also join our Facebook group, Siblings For Love of Recovery, if you're looking to have deeper conversations around your sibling's use of drugs or alcohol. And remember, where there is hope, there is healing.