demapping as issue-resolution

The substitute-compulsion stated as flatly as a hobby: killing became Lenz's way of resolving internal issues, a nightly practice slotted exactly where using used to sit. The recovery vocabulary — resolving issues, one day at a time — gets colonized by the new compulsion, which escalates on the same curve a drug habit does (rats grow ho-hum, then cats, then dogs, then nearly people). The addict removed the substance and the machine underneath went looking for another lever.