white-knuckle, and no temptation-rhetoric

Hal cold-quit and policing the perimeter of his own resolve: the synthetic bacchanal cancelled, the thirty-day clean stretch defended, and — the tell — an active refusal to even be argued with, temptation-rhetoric forbidden entry because he knows he can't afford to run the argument. This is white-knuckle abstinence without a program: no meetings, no sponsor, just a boy on a floor holding a line by declaring the subject closed, which is exactly the brittle solo quit the book keeps warning ends badly.