using more, enjoying it less, unable to moderate
I mean maybe make a decision. Forever. What if it was that I was doing it more and more and it was getting less fun but I was still doing it more and more, and the only way to moderate would be to like wave a hankie at it altogether.
Context
Hal's first honest self-diagnosis, floated in the safety of "what if": the textbook progression — doing it more and more while enjoying it less and less — and the recognition that follows, that there's no moderating, that for him the only door out is all the way out because any door in leads back to everything. He knows himself well enough to predict the collapse of his own resolve if he leaves any crack open, the firmest intention melting the moment the one-hitter's in reach. It's the addict's grim arithmetic of abstinence: not "I'll cut back" but "I can't touch any of it," because the part of him that would negotiate is the disease.