Repost: Change Is A Work In Progress

Dear Sugars

WBUR

Dear, Steve Almond, Society & Culture, Wbur, Cheryl Strayed, Sugar, Boston, Advice

4.5 • 5.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Seventeen-year-old “Struggling” had big dreams to leave his small town, but his living situation was at risk because he couldn’t stop using drugs. A letter writer who called herself “Bad Mom” loved her children, but could no longer bear the demands of motherhood. Both desperately needed to transform their lives.

In today’s update episode, we check in with some of our most memorable letter writers from previous episodes. The Sugars find out if “Struggling” was kicked out of his mother’s house, and they give “Bad Mom” a call to see if and how her views of motherhood have changed since hearing the Sugars’ advice more than two years ago.

This episode was originally published on January 27th, 2018.

The Sugars Recommend

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Archaic Torso of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The universe has good news for the lost, lonely, and heart sick.
0:09.7	The sugars are here, speaking straight into your ears.
0:13.3	I'm Steve Allman.
0:14.5	I'm Cheryl Strayed.
0:15.6	This is Dear Sugars.
0:19.3	Oh, dear song, won't you please?
0:25.6	Share some little sweet days with me. I check my bellbyes every day.
0:41.8	Oh, and the sugar you see in my way.
0:49.0	Hi, Cheryl.
0:50.6	Hey, Steve.
0:52.0	I have to confess that I've been really vicariously following your gallivanting
0:56.6	about the globe. Yes, I'm a believer in doing the things you say you want to do, setting your
1:04.2	intentions and following through with them. And for the longest time, my husband and I have been
1:08.6	saying that we want to pull our kids out of school and go
1:11.5	travel. And so we did. We went to New Zealand and Nepal and Tanzania and Kenya and Qatar and
1:19.0	Portugal. And it was really fun, life changing, life changing in that deep way that travel can be.
1:25.6	It wasn't a vacation. It was a trip. And it was a great way for me to end one
1:32.4	year and begin another. I know a lot of people kind of are like, oh, I don't do resolutions,
1:38.0	and I don't really reset myself at the mark of the new year. But I'm not one of those people.
1:43.5	I love the new year because it makes me year. But I'm not one of those people. I love the new year because
1:46.0	it makes me reflect upon what's past and think about what's coming ahead. I will be honest. I spent
1:53.2	those two months that you were traveling to all those places working very hard on not being bitter
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WBUR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WBUR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.