When He Said We

How Love Interrupted My Addiction

I stepped off the bus, determined to bypass the liquor store between me and the noon AA meeting. A block later, I sat on a bench, opened a can of tomato juice, and added vodka. Then, holding my thumb over the open tab, I shook the can. I could almost taste it, nearly feel that sense of ease and comfort.

“Hey there!” Dieter’s voice rang out. I froze with the can in midair as if I’d triggered a landmine. One wrong move could blow my world apart. He was idling in the center median, headed for the meeting on his lunch break, beaming gallantly as if running into me was good fortune—a knight in a white Integra saving me from a long walk. His timing couldn’t have been worse. My life would be over if he found out I was drinking again.

Getting into his car with an open cocktail was risky; gulping it down felt too suspicious. So, I set the can on the bench and hopped up, so thirsty for it that I ached. I would endure the meeting and return for it. Any torment was better than getting caught. Still frantic, I made my way to his car.

Dieter disappeared during the meeting while I was reading “How It Works.” The longer he was gone, the more certain I became that he had returned to my crime scene to collect the evidence. Outside, after the meeting, I knew for sure when he took both my hands.

“Is there anything you want to tell me?” he asked.

I averted my eyes and bit my lip. Volunteering the truth would be madness.

“I thought it was weird how you set your drink down,” Dieter said.

I wriggled around, heat bouncing off the blacktop, the parking lot swaying like the sea.

“I brought it back with me.” Dieter led me to his car and produced his proof. “There’s alcohol in it,” he said. “You’re drinking again.”

It was time to bare my teeth and snarl. Anger had always been my best defense. However, by this time, I had no fight left in me.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

His pronoun choice confused me. Who was this “we?” It had been me against the world, including Dieter, for so long that I couldn’t envision anything else. I stared into Dieter’s guileless, clear-sky eyes, like windows to a new world. Were they my way out? Or merely a fantasy?

“We need you to be well.” He took me by the shoulders. “This doesn’t work without you. Don’t you understand?”

My head whirled around the idea as light seeped in. If I could trust him, this changed everything. A sudden buoyancy lifted my heart. I tensed against it, thinking he had let me down so many times.

I noticed his frustration as his hands fell. “It’s not all about you, Lisa.”

A wave of humility knocked my ego clean out of me, and I heard him.

This was my “eclipse moment.” The world hushed as if time itself were holding its breath. Like the literal peak of an astronomical event, this marked a powerful pivot point—an irreversible shift in my perception that would forever change how I viewed the world. I was no longer separate and alone but part of something greater.

My ego had long obscured the light of my soul. I lived in darkness—trapped in addiction, running on fear, desperate to control a world I didn’t trust. Love was a hunger—a need that could never be satisfied. Then, at that moment, something shifted. That single word—we—disarmed me.

Everything I thought protected me—anger, secrecy, pride—slipped away. I wasn’t a burden to be managed or a problem to solve. I mattered—not because I was impressive or strong, but because I was human and hurting. Because I impact others.

When Dieter said we, he wasn’t just offering help; he was reminding me we were in this together. “We” is the first word of the first step in recovery because none of us can do this alone. And love isn’t earned; it doesn’t need anything. It sees the soul behind the damage and the worth beneath the wreckage. It connects. It stays. Love is a presence, not a plea. It just is.

The “eclipse moment” is when clarity, transformation, or rebirth becomes possible. Like a solar eclipse, it symbolizes a temporary darkening during which something crucial is hidden or blocked, but not forever.

Just as the sun reemerges after an eclipse, this moment carries the seeds of transformation. It marks the threshold of real awakening and recovery—not necessarily immediately but irreversibly. Change will unfold.

Redemption does not come when we have everything together but when we are vulnerable and willing to admit the truth.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do.” The word “we” felt presumptuous and strange on my lips. “I can’t stop drinking. I don’t know why not, but I can’t stop.”

That’s where freedom lies.