I don't know if this is a feasible step for you considering you have a family to support, but you can do what I did. I was starting age 24 when I dropped progra

I don't know if this is a feasible step for you considering you have a family to support, but you can do what I did. I was starting age 24 when I dropped programming for over a year, and studied master's in counseling psychology plus sociology (2 degrees). 14 months later, today, I turned into an extrovert :) not permanently though. I can now turn into introvert/extrovert according to the situation and need. I am more adaptable and more sure of myself. Programming jobs and the people it brings can be isolating at times, and if you are trying to improve your social skills, it is not a very effective environment, generally. I turned not because of the degrees,but the people I met there in those programs. When you spent 3/5 hours a day discussing/debating/fighting/having-fun with another groups of human beings, you just change. I was not too isolated before I worked in programming to begin with though in my case; it was working in programming that slowly made me too isolated. Being a total geek has its perks, but the rest of the people don't care about hackernews ;) Start from there.