I'm Okay Dad. Finally I'm Okay. | Pondoff's Anonymous Season 3 Episode 33 with Kent EhrhardtI'm Okay Dad. Finally I'm Okay. | Pondoff's Anonymous Season 3 Episode 33 with Kent Ehrhardt
Pondoff's Anonymous
Kent Ehrhardt shares the story of his son Alec’s struggles with alcohol, mental health and isolation, and how their family is living with grief and trying to help others. The conversation blends humour, heartbreak and hope as it looks at addiction across generations and the power of speaking up.
2:24:12•21 Sept 2026
Grief, Guilt and Small Rubber Ducks: Kent Ehrhardt Shares Alec’s Story
Episode Overview
- Addiction and isolation can pull someone into living conditions their family never sees, which can be as traumatising as the loss itself.
- Parents often shoulder intense guilt after a child’s death, but multiple voices in the episode stress that it is not their fault.
- Early, honest conversations and clear boundaries around alcohol can make a difference, even if they’re uncomfortable.
- Interventions, medical detox and longer-term residential support can genuinely save the life of someone with severe alcohol dependence.
- Staying connected through memorial events, charities and shared stories helps keep a loved one’s memory alive and offers some comfort in grief.
“I'm okay dad. Finally I'm okay.”
Get ready to be moved by real-life accounts of loss, love and recovery as longtime TV weatherman Kent Ehrhardt sits down with hosts Chris Pondoff, Jeff Allen and Zoe to talk about his son Alec, addiction and what happens after the unthinkable.
Across a warm, often funny but deeply raw chat, you’ll hear Kent trace his path from accidentally answering a phone at uni to four decades on television, then shift into the real heart of the episode: being a dad to a son who struggled with alcohol, mental health and isolation.
He describes Alec as a football player, motocross rider and festival-going music fan who followed String Cheese Incident around the country, handing out tiny rubber ducks to strangers just to make friends. Kent talks candidly about finding out Alec had died alone in his flat, the shock of seeing how he’d been living, and the way guilt and anger still tug at him.
One of the most powerful moments comes when Kent recalls standing outside the funeral home, hand on the wall, hearing in his mind, "I'm okay dad. Finally I'm okay." It’s heartbreaking and strangely comforting all at once. You’ll also hear how addiction has threaded through Kent’s life – losing his mum to alcoholism, facing his ex-wife’s drinking and watching his daughter stage a life-saving intervention.
There’s hope too: a family that pulled closer after Alec’s death, a golf tournament with Addiction Is Real in Alec’s honour, and even plans to send a vial of Alec’s ashes into orbit because he loved space. If you’re a parent, a partner or anyone touched by addiction, this conversation offers honest pain, flashes of humour and a strong reminder that help and connection are out there. Who in your life might need you to be a bit bolder today?
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