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Love Letters has been feeling pretty international lately.
The U.S., Italy, and today we travel to South Africa.
Johannesburg, specifically.
That's where Heather lives.
I wound up in this place by accident.
Living in Johannesburg is almost like being in on a secret, because people who don't live here don't get it.
We don't have a beautiful mountain.
We don't have the ocean.
This is a landlocked city.
It's smoggy.
It's We've got crime.
We've got an incredible issue with poverty.
But there's something about the people here.
Again, it's a cliche, but I really think it's true.
Something about the people there, or rather one person in particular.
From the Boston Globe, this is Love Letters.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
Today's story is about addiction, and it's one I really need to tell, because so many of us deal with it firsthand, or maybe with a loved one.
It's a disease that can keep real change terribly out of reach.
I'd like you to meet Heather, who's going to tell a story with many twists and turns.
Her experience shows us that we can't change others, but that there is hope for changing ourselves.
A quick warning this episode does include some difficult conversations about addiction trauma, abuse and loss.
I'm Heather Mason.
I just turned 50.
And yeah, I'm a writer and photographer and a blogger.
I'm the oldest of two girls.
And my parents got divorced when I was 10.
And I was just about to go through puberty.
And I think I was very aware of their dating lives.
And they both got into new relationships really quickly.
Being in a relationship with a boy was always like my number one thing in my mind.
You know, the thing that I thought was just going to like make me the person I wanted to be.
Historically, Heather has kind of always been in a relationship.
Well, my pattern when I look back was always, you know, I would end a relationship and think okay, like I'm going to be on my own now.
Like, I'm going to be single.
But it just, it didn't last very long.
Heather's first marriage happens in her early 20s.
It does not work.
She says there are lots of lies, lots of drama and she's out of that relationship.
A few years later,
Then, around 30, a second marriage.
She meets a guy named Tom who is lovely, seemingly the opposite of husband number one.
Tom is dependable, a grown-up.
Heather and Tom make a home together around Washington DC.
I feel like I sort of slid into his life, you know.
He had very specific opinions about the decor he liked and the type of music he liked and what he liked to do with his spare time.
And he had, like, a very solid group of friends from college.
At the time, I was, like, euphoric over the fact that it just seemed, like, normal.
So life is okay, at least on paper.
Two years of marriage pass.
Heather is 32, and life is very stable.
At this point, Heather is also in a good place with her career.
She has a new job at an NGO focused on pediatric AIDS.
It's inspiring work.
Heather and Tom have also decided that it might be time to have kids.
Heather goes off birth control, and they start trying.
But then right around that same time, I got this opportunity to go on this trip to Africa.
Heather was managing the website for this NGO, and their upcoming fundraiser was in Tanzania.
Heather jumps at the chance to go.
She's told she'll be paired with a freelance photographer, a guy named John from South Africa, who'll help her document the trip for the organization.
Basically, she'll write, he'll get pics.
Heather is ecstatic about the chance to go on this big trip.
She's done some international travel, including a few months on a break from college, but this feels so much bigger than that.
This is going to be a truly professional, worldly experience.
Her first instinct is to share it with her husband.
Yeah, so I was so excited.
And I remember even asking Tom, like, don't you want to come meet me there?
You know, after this fundraiser, we can do a safari.
And you know here like we're thinking about having kids and this might be the only chance that either of us ever get to go to Africa.
Like, let's do this.
And he was like why would I ever get on a plane and fly that far to see animals, you know, when I can just go to the zoo up the street?
And I remember just laughing that off, too.
Like, that seemed like a ridiculous notion, but it was fine.
I was just going to do it myself.
Heather has no idea what to expect from this trip or from John, the photographer she'll be working with.
You know, I'd seen John's photography.
I'd spoken to him.
Maybe we'd spoken on the phone just to coordinate about the trip and we'd emailed and stuff.
Yeah, I had sort of a starstruck feeling before we met.
And I knew that he was sort of a well-known photographer in South Africa, that he'd won awards.
He was a photojournalist.
He'd won a World Press Photo Award and South African Photographer of the Year and things like that.
So that was what I was going into this with.
I got to the airport in Arusha, Tanzania, and somehow...
I didn't.
I had no idea who was meeting me there or how I was going to get to our accommodation, which seems really ridiculous.
Like I was there for work and you think that would have all been squared away.
But this was also kind of like before cell phones.
You know like I had a loaner Blackberry that I had gotten for the job but I had never really used it.
I didn't know how to make calls on it.
And I arrived in the airport expecting this sort of like coordinator guy to meet me there, and I just couldn't find him.
And-
I suddenly felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned around and it was John.
And I mean it sounds so cheesy or like maybe I'm making this up in hindsight, but it really wasn't.
There was like an electric current when I met this guy.
It's something I had really never experienced.
Do you remember what he was wearing?
Like he had a.
He had sort of like a The 1990s photojournalist outfit that he wore like a plaid shirt, hiking pants, like leather hiking boots and like a photographer's vest.
You know where you would have these like pockets in it that you would put your lenses and stuff in.
Like a lot of South Africans are going to hate me for making this comparison.
But it was around that era was also this was 2007.
So it was around the Blood Diamond Leonardo DiCaprio era.
And he he had that vibe.
He just had this quality, this like adventurer, like spirit swashbuckling.
You know take, go in and with your big camera and like shoot pictures of people.
And I just felt it right away.
And we, we got, he, he, you know, I went, I had no idea he was going to be there.
And I said, okay, hi, John.
And he said, you must be Heather.
I said, yeah.
And he said, let's go outside.
There's a car waiting for us.
And you know he'd go outside and we'd get into this like land cruiser or whatever.
That was like a guy driving it.
And, Me and John in the car, and that was just how it started.
The trip lasts two weeks, and Heather has a life-changing time.
And John is around for these adventures.
And again, it's like such a cliche stereotype, like white lady landing in Africa, you know.
But I really was, I was completely, I was floored by everything I saw.
Just like...
The trees, the, I mean, the mountains, I mean, you know, Mount Kilimanjaro was like right there.
And there were like monkeys around and beautiful women with these incredibly bright printed.
You know, kikoi dresses on.
Heather and John work closely together during the trip, combining their words and images on deadline for the organization.
She feels in over her head and he boosts her up.
They're creative together.
It's kind of a dream.
At one point, he and I it was like before the actual fundraiser had started he and I, just together, went to this orphanage and he was taking photos and all these kids were around him.
And he would look at me in this intense way and say well Heather, like you, just you've got such a feel for what's happening here.
Like I can just see the way you connect with people.
And you know, I just had this.
I had that feeling inside that you get when you're just like What is it?
Like the butterflies.
But more, like so intense that sometimes I feel like I couldn't even stand up straight.
Like I just was like overcome with feeling for this super hot South African dude.
But nothing happens beyond working together and bonding.
John winds up hooking up with an actual single person on the trip.
Heather keeps her crush to herself because, well, she's married.
The day she leaves Tanzania, John gets up early to say goodbye to her.
And she honestly thinks she'll never see him again.
And then I was home.
And I was back to my regular life.
I actually wound up seeing John one time during that year because he actually came to New York for another fundraiser that our NGO was having.
But it was also because he wanted to see this other girl, the one he was having a thing with.
I remember thinking okay well, he's a friend and I'm like attracted to him, but he lives in South Africa.
He's like with someone else and I'm married.
And, you know, I kind of thought that was it.
But then I didn't get pregnant for whatever reason.
I don't actually know now why.
But like a year, a little over a year went by and then the AIDS Walk Africa was happening again.
And I kind of thought the year before that I probably wouldn't be going because I would like have a baby.
But I did go.
The trip starts and Heather's chemistry with John is more aggressive, this time more palpable and absolutely on both sides.
There was so much tension between us.
You know, we were just talking talking talking, talking and I just felt so attracted to him and it was very obvious that he also felt that toward me.
And when we got to Swaziland it was like we were just attached at the hip for the entire trip, you know.
Not just for work, but like doing little side trips and exploring the nature reserves and yeah.
But on this trip, Heather starts to notice something else about John.
He'd had a lot to drink on the trip the previous year when she met him.
She would have described him as a big, fun drinker.
But on this trip, it's more apparent that he drinks a lot.
Too much.
Like I remember we would hang out like me and him and some other colleagues at night after things had happened in the day, and he would just like have, like it would start with wine, but then there would be like a bottle of whiskey, you know, and he would just drink that.
If anything, John's drinking gives Heather a reason to maintain the boundaries.
She thinks, there's no real future here.
I'm not going to betray my husband.
This flirtation is just fun.
But of course it's more than that.
One night, this becomes clear.
So inevitably, one of the nights on that trip, he was drunk.
I was sitting outside of my little chalet with him on a picnic table and he just completely hit on me.
And I'm like, what are you doing?
Stop.
I'm like pushing him away.
I'm like, I can't believe this is happening.
Because, you know, I'd had these thoughts the whole year leading up to this, but I just kept pushing them away and thinking what's the point of having these feelings?
Like, it's just, it's absurd.
Um, But then I literally wound up fighting him off and felt really freaked out.
And I remember going back to my room and it was like one o'clock in the morning and I tried to call Tom on my BlackBerry.
I think I just, I don't know why.
I just felt like I had to make contact with my normal life to like snap myself out of it.
And he's like, why are you calling me?
Like it's the middle of the night.
And I was like, oh, I'm just, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.
At the end of the trip, before she heads home, to get back to reality, with Tom Heather's scheduled to see her company's offices in Johannesburg.
She'll see John there, of course, because he lives there.
She winds up getting to Johannesburg and finding out that John is seeing someone.
After all this, it turns out he's coupled, too.
Heather is confused and upset but also knows she doesn't have the right to be because she is married.
John ends up taking her to the airport when she goes back to the U.S.
It's so confusing.
And I think he actually kissed me.
He kissed me, actually, before I left.
Very briefly, but it was still not just a kiss on the cheek.
And then I was just completely... I was like an insane person at that point.
I was thinking about him all the time.
I went back home.
I was trying to act normal to Tom and to our friends.
But I was thinking about John...
20 out of 24 hours a day, you know, including my sleep.
Heather continues on with her marriage though she's trying to make it work during this time but also having conversations with john via skype, where he's like i'm so into you and she's like we should probably never talk again, but they always talk again.
I'm not sure what i thought was going to happen, but i was trying to just still be in denial, like to everyone else, while i had this totally other life going in my head where i was literally fantasizing about moving to South Africa to be with John.
But we didn't talk for a long time, like maybe six or eight months.
Then one night, after this long break, John calls.
I get a call on my BlackBerry.
It's a South African number.
I could see that it was John.
I got off the metro and I could see that this call had come in that I hadn't heard because there was no signal on the metro.
But long story short.
We cooked up sort of some excuse for me to come to South Africa for a job, to work with him on a project.
And I knew, when I left for that trip, like I remember saying goodbye to Tom at the airport and thinking like things aren't going to be the same when I come back.
Heather sleeps with John during this trip.
She knows as soon as that happens, she has to come home and change her life.
And she does.
But there's so much more to that story.
More when we come back.
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We're all out of the ordinary.
There's a battle playing out right now over who should control American universities.
We're going to bankrupt these universities.
In season one, we were guessing what was to come.
Now, we know.
We want nothing less than $500 million from Harvard.
From the Boston Globe and on the media, it's season two of The Harvard Plan.
This time, it really is personal.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
We're back.
So Heather has slept with John, the South African photographer she's been having an emotional affair with for the past few years.
She flew to see him in Africa, and now she has to go home to her husband.
All right, I have two questions.
One is about.
I think some people don't understand the compartmentalization that can go on, that you can simultaneously be leading a life where you're like maybe we'll get pregnant.
I am in a happy marriage and you can also be having like Jane Austen letter writing to someone else.
Like, can you describe how you were separating those parts of your brain?
Yeah.
I mean, it was a shock to me too.
And it is also now looking back, like, because I do not like lying.
I am someone who likes to tell the truth, but I yeah, I I think what was going on was I was living what I thought was a fantasy.
It was only the thing that actually sparked things to just flare up again was that he got sober.
Or at least I thought he did.
When he got in touch with me again a year and a half later, he was sort of very vague.
And by this time, he'd also told me, like, I have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
He told me he had mental illness, diagnosed mental illness.
I knew he was an alcoholic.
But then... he stopped drinking or he told me he stopped drinking.
That actually then shifted something in my mind.
Suddenly that was when I did acknowledge my feelings of, Oh, like maybe, maybe he can change.
I reached this point of deciding okay, I have to tell Tom the truth and I have to leave this marriage.
And I think I have to move to Africa.
I don't know if it's going to be with John or not, because I don't know what he's going to do.
But I'm just going to go ahead.
And I like, I made a plan and I came home from work on a Friday night.
We went to dinner and after dinner I just I just took, I remember Tom and I were standing on the deck of our house and I just said I have something to tell you.
It's really shocking, but I have realized I'm living the wrong life and I am leaving and I'm moving to Africa.
Yeah.
What do you say to that?
I mean, if you're Tom, what do you say to that?
Yeah, I mean, it was a complete shock.
I truly don't believe he had any idea.
Yeah, I don't think it sunk in at all.
I mean, at one point during the night, he said, like, is this about John?
And I was like, yeah, you know.
And I think he might have even asked me, like, did you sleep with him?
I think I said, yeah.
And I said, I'm going to leave tomorrow.
I think I was expecting Tom to be really angry right off the bat and be like, get the hell out.
But he wasn't, which in hindsight makes perfect sense because he was just actually in shock.
You know, the next morning, he just he actually begged me to not not do this.
You know which I just I wasn't prepared for that reaction.
And it was horrific.
It was awful.
Months later.
Heather arrives in South Africa.
She's told John she's coming, and that she's left Tom.
John leaves the person he's been with, too.
They basically move right in together.
It's a lot of change, but to Heather, it feels right.
Sort of.
Everything was great for a while.
It was so romantic.
John is just such a passionate, intense person and really sensitive and intelligent, and we just, you know, connected in every way that we thought we would.
And we immediately had these really cool trips we were doing together.
We went to Lesotho, which is like a teeny tiny country inside South Africa to like document this amazing health program where people were carrying medications on horseback.
You know, it was great.
And he was sober when I first arrived, but he was within months kind of not.
Can you start to walk me through what happens and whatever you're comfortable with, and I'll never forget the night that I arrived.
And, you know, John, he had been like so nervous and excited for me to come.
And he, you know, met me at the airport and he had this huge bouquet of flowers and, you know, brought me back to our new house that we were living in together.
And there was this basket, like a big basket where he had, you know, different kinds of food and a card, and like more flowers and this bottle of wine, you know.
And this was the thing about John.
He saw himself as like... a wine connoisseur, you know, and he had quit drinking and he had told me before I came that he was sober and it was really hard for him to stay sober, but he was doing it and he had the psychiatrist and, but then he had this bottle of wine waiting and he said, I just, I want to be able to enjoy this beautiful bottle of wine with you.
And, you know, I know I can, you know, I only would ever do this with you.
And, and my doctor says, it's okay.
Um, which in hindsight, like, she definitely didn't.
The wine becomes a thing.
It goes from that first bottle to more.
Pretty soon, they're having a bottle every two or three nights, and then more than one bottle.
Then it became oh, but you know, I just like to have a beer every now and then with lunch, you know.
So he would have a beer and I'd be like okay fine, I'll have a beer too.
Everything seemed fine, but it lasted for like two or three months before I started to see the cracks.
Do you want to take me through just the progression of the relationship and what happens?
It's hard to even describe because it became so chaotic so quickly.
And, you know, I had seen already, I'd seen Drunk John.
I'd seen the way he acts when he's drunk.
I had seen the way he would.
I don't want to say he got violent, but he would get so intense that and and like weird about things.
And then, like the next day, he wouldn't remember.
You know the things that he's crazy, things that he said.
And I, I feel like the first time there was like a, a hint of something.
So I got there in August and it was October.
The end of October was his birthday.
And we have like a, what we call a briar, which is like a barbecue, but South African.
And he, he, he drank a lot.
I didn't realize how much.
And he got, we got into an argument.
Like he got angry with me because I turned down the music, you know, and he yelled at me in this way that was.
I was like oh, like that hasn't happened before.
That kind of incident becomes more frequent.
I a lot of times didn't really know what was happening because he was so good at hiding it.
You know, he'd been doing this his whole life.
I mean, I realize now, I mean, at that time he was in his mid-40s.
But, you know, he'd been a heavy, heavy drinker his entire adult life and probably his childhood.
And there was, you know...
He also came of age in this era in South Africa that was the end of apartheid.
And he was a photojournalist documenting violence.
And there were many, many other people in that generation who had similar stuff going on.
And I think it was always mixed in with his mental illness.
You know like he would suddenly one day.
He would get up out of bed and then he would just fall down.
You know, he just couldn't.
He would be like totally out of it.
And I'm like, what's going on?
And now we'd have to get him to the hospital, you know, and like we'd get to the hospital and the doctor would be like, oh well, your brain activity has this and we need to do a scan and we do this.
And I'm like, when's somebody going to bring up the drinking thing?
You know, and like nobody would.
So I think by June, yeah, he was, things had gotten so bad.
He'd like his car had been totaled and he was driving a rental car and then the rental car was totaled and he was out wandering around.
About seven months after Heather's big move, She goes with John to his psychiatrist.
The doctor says, John, you should go to this rehab.
He says no.
Heather gives him an ultimatum.
This is mid-2011.
I managed to get him to this rehab, and he checked in for a couple weeks.
And that was when the real changes kind of started in me, because I started going to support groups and I had this therapist and I started to kind of understand what addiction was.
Heather was learning how to define addiction and that it wasn't always just about a drug or a drink.
She watched as John struggled to find his way through.
He got sober for a good while at that time, and it was this miraculous thing, you know.
I don't think he'd ever been to rehab before, and things looked good.
He returned to himself even better than I'd ever seen him, you know.
And I was...
I was really excited and hopeful, but I was also going to these support groups where I was meeting, you know, at the rehab that he was in.
They had like a meeting every week for like family members and friends of people in the rehab.
And we started to learn.
You know I started learning a little bit about like the 12 steps and the serenity prayer and the whole idea of like codependency.
And that you know John's addiction has nothing to do with me, that there's nothing and there's also nothing I can do about it.
Things are hopeful.
But in October, around John's birthday, he relapses, which is something Heather was told might happen in all of her work as his partner.
When somebody relapses after being sober, it's worse, you know, because it's sort of like he's had a taste of how things were with us when he was sober.
I had a taste of that.
He had to hide it even more.
I went away on a trip.
He got totally—he was drunk and hospitalized while I was away.
When I came back he said he was going to try again, and And then two days later I could see he was drunk.
He came back from some errand and he was drunk.
And I just said, I'm going to have coffee with a friend.
And I took my purse.
I put a pair of underwear in it and a toothbrush.
And instead of walking to the coffee shop, which was around the corner, I got in John's car.
I mean, I stole his car.
He called the police.
He sent the police out looking for me.
I was literally hiding in a neighbor's house.
And I could hear him screaming.
It was complete and utter chaos, the most chaotic period that I've ever been through.
I didn't think of it as abuse, but now I realize I was actually in an abusive relationship.
But in my mind it was always like I'm in an abusive.
I didn't think of it as abuse, but I thought the bad person is drunk John.
Eventually, I'm going to get the real John back.
We all know that addiction kills people.
It's hard to imagine it.
It's hard to imagine it happening to someone that you love.
And I think especially alcoholism.
There's this idea that alcoholism is not as bad of an addiction as heroin or whatever else.
And I remember sitting in my therapist's office and saying to her, I feel like he's going to die.
Is that possible?
Do alcoholics die?
And she said, we've buried three clients this year.
One night, Heather's home.
John's out of town.
It's December, and things have gotten worse.
He knew I think something was wrong and he called a friend of his from the rehab and said I need help.
I need to get back to Joburg.
Like, can you help me?
And it just so happened because it was the week before Christmas that this friend of his his parents were driving back to Joburg from Durban and they were passing this place where John was, and they picked him up, put him in the backseat.
You know, we're bringing it back to Joburg.
And I don't know exactly what happened, but somewhere in that car ride, he died.
Heather had moved to Johannesburg for a man she believed was the love of her life.
And now he's gone.
You know, I think a lot of people might have thought why didn't you just go back to America at that point?
But my life, I had become so...
I had so many close friends actually in Joburg by that time and I didn't I never considered going home.
But I also... I just couldn't do anything.
Heather is a wreck, crying all the time.
Also having to do practical things, like finally get her own bank account in a new country.
It is a time of grief.
But then unexpectedly, Weirdly suddenly, maybe two to three months after John died, I this thing happened where I started.
I started thinking about other guys, like every time I would go somewhere and I was really.
I was like out and about at this point.
I was writing a lot of stories about Joburg for my blog.
I was like doing all that and also writing about my grief.
And I was very involved in the community.
So I was always meeting new people and I was like, neat guys.
And then they, you know, I think I was giving off some kind of energy too.
Like I was ultra vulnerable, kind of insecure energy that weirdly attracted people, but they were the wrong people.
Heather's surprised that she's feeling things for these people.
She dates a guy in her support group and when the relationship ends she's devastated, which doesn't make sense to her because, like this guy, is new.
Heather talks to her therapist about this.
And I just cried and cried in her office about this other guy.
You know, not about John, but about this other guy.
And I remember her looking at me sort of at the end of the session and saying okay Heather, how ready are you to really work on yourself?
And I didn't really know what she meant.
And she said, I think you should come participate in our outpatient program here for a few weeks.
And this is like a program for addicts.
It was the same program that John went to.
It was like you would meet at four o'clock every afternoon in a group and you would have shares and you would do 12-step work.
And I was like, what?
I was sort of shocked by her suggestion and didn't say yes or no then.
But I remember I went home and I was still thinking about this guy, this other guy.
And I called her and I said, okay, I'll do it.
Heather goes to this program.
And at first she's thinking, I guess I'm here because I'm codependent. or something.
But then she goes from talking about John's problems and how they affected her to talking about her own actions, going from relationship to relationship.
She begins to recognize a pattern.
You're forced to look at yourself.
I mean, that's kind of the whole point of addiction.
Recovery from addiction is like looking within yourself at what is ailing you.
And I just couldn't after a while, you also have to write a life story.
So I was starting to write my life story.
I'm writing about all these different relationships.
The first marriage which, in hindsight, clearly I was with someone who I don't know if he was an addict, but he had issues.
And I was very focused on his issues.
And then I sort of seesawed and got with someone who I thought was a a cure for that relationship.
And then I cease on again in like the most extreme way and went to John.
And the sort of thread that connects all of it is that I just was.
I loved the feeling of being obsessed with another person.
Heather realizes that like John, she's an addict.
She has an unhealthy craving for love, desire, and attention.
The need to be needed and vice versa.
Looking into love addiction, it seems like it's all about unhealthy romantic attachments and and an inability to figure out boundaries.
The word obsessive comes up a lot.
When I hear Heather's story as an advice columnist and journalist, the word pattern comes to mind.
So many of us keep doing the same things over and over and over again, even though it hurts us.
Heather kept looking for a next love, so she had a purpose in life.
And when she stopped, with help, it opened up a whole new world.
I love that Heather wound up finding herself through treatment for addiction and that she gave herself permission to be the main character in her own story.
Because she is, right?
Do you feel like being part of this changed you?
Yeah, I've been thinking about that.
And I think the short answer I want to give is no.
But the reason is not because I'm not different as a result of going through that that experience and the recovery and all that.
But i think um, like there's a difference between recovering from addiction and changing the kind of.
The whole premise of the 12-step program is accepting that you have this addiction and then living with it, like figuring out how to accept it in a way that you know you can.
You can live with that part of yourself without killing yourself, you know.
So it's like that's why every 12-step meeting starts with hi, i'm heather i'm, I'm a love addict, I'm an alcoholic, I'm whatever, because you always are.
Once you realize that part of yourself, it doesn't go away, you don't change it.
You just learn to deal with it.
For me, the goal was to acknowledge this part of myself, that it caused a lot of damage both to me and to others.
Heather has worked on this part of herself for years now.
She's in a relationship today, but it feels different Because, though she doesn't necessarily feel that she has changed per se, her way of seeing the world and herself is not the same.
And the thing is, she feels pretty recovered.
But she's right.
It's not like it's a light switch that can be turned on and off.
She has to watch herself.
In the case of recovery, chemical or otherwise, I think it's a forever thing.
That's what Dr. Hyman said, at least.
He's the brain scientist we interviewed in episode three.
Stephen Hyman told me that treating addiction is not a simple thing.
There is nothing that rewires us completely so that our instincts are cured.
So much of recovery involves consistent work and community.
I can see that in Heather's story, which is about life choices love, dependency and how to find change that makes life healthier.
I think, as we go through this season, it's important to acknowledge that some changes break us down and put us back together.
They change us at our core.
Some other changes are external, and they lead to internal decisions.
And some are about living a changed life with external help, commitment, and intention.
All of these kinds of changes are important, and I want to believe they're all possible for good.
All I know is that, talking to Heather so many years after she started her own process of change, she sees things more clearly than ever.
I think my philosophy is people only change if they want to.
You know, John, for example, he tried so hard to be sober.
I saw it.
It didn't last long when we were together, but I saw him trying.
And for him it wasn't possible, you know, because his addiction was truly I mean and again, there's all kinds of different arguments you can make about this
But for me, like he had an illness.
He had an incurable illness.
And it was never fair for me to ever think that I could change him or that he could change because of me.
Heather is still in South Africa, living a beautiful life and blogging all about it.
I think I should now say if you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, help is available.
You can dial 988 on any phone in the country to connect with a crisis, professional or Love Letters is a production of the Boston Globe.
Our producer is Christine Ahanatu.
Our executive producer is Kristen Nelson.
Uzair Ahmed does our audio mixing and mastering.
Sound design by Christine Ahanatu.
Maddie Mortel is our audience engagement manager.
Special thanks to Nancy Barnes and Linda Henry.
Our music is from APM.
Remember, Love Letters is also an advice column.
We love getting questions about dating, divorce, marriage, singlehood, whatever you're experiencing, to lovelettersatboston.com.
When you send a letter, generally it helps someone else.
And if you like this show, please leave us a review.
Learn more at loveletters.show.
If you're in a relationship and there's something that you think you want to change about it, just go to therapy.
I'm Meredith Goldstein.
Thanks for listening.
