the strategic switch, not the white flag

The positive half of Pemulis's doctrine: substitution over abstinence. You don't quit a need, you re-route it — heroin to a case of Coors a day, booze to the Bob, the trick being "the right switch for a man's wiring." It's the exact inverse of the Program's claim (that the cage admits no strategic switch, that you can only surrender), and it's offered here with real conviction and real friendship, which is what makes it dangerous: Pemulis isn't a villain pushing dope, he's a friend who genuinely believes the machine can only be kept running, never turned off, and is lobbying for a DMZ session on that sincere theory.