the menthol scheme: the addict's logic backfiring — "he’d figured that if menthols were…"
he’d figured that if menthols were the only gaspers he let himself smoke he’d be more likely to quit. And now he can’t stand anything but menthols, which Calvin T. says are even worse for you
Context
A small comic exhibit of how the addicted mind's schemes turn on it. Gately's plan was pure addict-logic applied to quitting: smoke only a cigarette you hate, and you'll smoke less and eventually stop. Instead the exposure did what exposure does — "now he can’t stand anything but menthols," a new dependence installed by the very strategy meant to end dependence, and on the worse cigarette besides. The theme's throwaway lesson is that you cannot out-maneuver a compulsion with a clever rule; the will that designs the trick is the same will the Disease has already colonized, so the trick just deepens the habit. (Cf. 069's Codinex-as-corridor-extender, the same logic at lethal scale.)