Bernadene: When Your Ex Is Drinking and Your Kids Go Anyway

Children work out the pattern. Friday nights are bad. Saturday morning is worse. Tuesday is usually fine. If the house is clean and the laundry is done there will be praise, and then at some point in the afternoon the first glass gets poured and the praise stops being available. None of this is written down anywhere. The child works it out and then organizes their life around it.

Bernadene is a mindset and confidence coach who grew up in that house. Her mother was an alcoholic, which she notes is the less-told version of this story, because the alcoholic parent in most accounts is the father. She was the eldest of three and took the protective role, becoming the over-responsible child who kept everything immaculate, and she is honest about where that went next: a teenager who drank whenever she got the chance, an adult who did not like herself, and years of making people work absurdly hard to earn her trust before she understood why.

She and Lisa also draw the parallel to what this audience lives with, because Lisa was sent to Al-Anon when she separated from her ex and found it useful despite alcohol not being the issue. The overlap is a parent who cannot be fully present, and an apology that is never coming. Bernadene's clearest tool is that second part. She realized her mother genuinely did not remember the things she had said, and would not have considered them wrong regardless, so waiting for an apology was waiting for nothing. What she did instead was start treating her mother as a stranger, because most of us extend more grace to strangers than to family, and deliberately choose one memory to keep.

She is careful to say this is not forgiveness on demand, and she does not badmouth her mother publicly. Her framing is that her mother was a person doing the best she could with what she had. The family took her to the best doctors, psychologists and treatment facilities they could find, and she would be well and then relapse, until she stopped fighting.

The last third is the part to take notes on. What to say to a child whose other parent is drinking, and why glossing over it teaches them not to trust you. Why the child's job is never to fix the adult, and why they need that said out loud. How to collect your child from a house where the other parent is intoxicated without turning it into a scene, since your child is learning from how you handle it. What to tell other people, and how to ask your child what they are comfortable with you saying. And why she would not have wanted to be removed, which is a harder answer than most people expect.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why an apology may never come, and what to do instead of waiting for one
• The "anchor memory," and how to choose one without pretending nothing happened
• Why treating a parent as a stranger creates room you cannot find any other way
• What to say to a child whose other parent is drinking, close to word for word
• Why glossing over it teaches your child that you cannot be trusted
• How to pick your child up from an intoxicated parent without making it a scene
• What to tell other people, and why to ask your child first
• Why removing a child from the situation is not the straightforward answer it looks like

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 An alcoholic mother, and why this story is usually about fathers
5:00 Not knowing anything was wrong, because it was normal
6:00 What was said to her, and the over-responsible teenager it made
9:00 Treating your parent as a stranger, and the anchor memory
13:00 Siblings, and the two sons who saw the same thing
15:00 Her father, and every treatment they tried
17:00 When your ex is the addict: what your kids need to hear
22:00 Collecting your child without lighting a fire
24:00 What outsiders say, and why removal is not the simple answer
31:00 Mindset, the brain dump, and the line she leaves people with

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Bernadene on Instagram (@your_motivationalcoach): https://www.instagram.com/your_motivationalcoach/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.