the same delusion as the Substance-delusion
He’s still pretty new himself: wanting somebody else to take care of his mess, somebody else to keep him out of his various cages. It’s the same delusion as the basic addictive-Substance-delusion, basically.
Context
Gately turning the diagnostic on his own rescue-romance and finding the disease under it: the fantasy of Joelle spiriting him out of the hospital and the legal mess is the wish for someone else to keep him out of his cages, which is the addictive delusion itself in a new costume. The mark of his own newness is that he still wants the outside fix — the person, the escape — the identical reflex that the Substance used to answer.