withdrawal as the trigger of the horror
a couple of weeks after I’ve smoked a lot and finally stopped and quit and gone back to really living, after a couple of weeks this feeling always starts creeping in, just creeping in a little at the edges at first, like first thing in the morning when I get up, or waiting for the T to go home, after work, for supper.
Context
The mechanism the resident's literature does not connect: the annihilating feeling arrives reliably a couple of weeks after she stops, creeping in at the edges of ordinary moments. The quitting is what summons the horror, which is why every attempt to get clean detonates the exact state that sends her back — a withdrawal loop the clinic reads only as recurring depression.