faithful attendant at the goddess's temple
from that somnolent P.M. in the JFK lot on he’d been a faithful attendant at the goddess Demerol’s temple, right to the very finish.
Context
The addiction rendered in its own devotional register: from the first two chalky tablets swallowed in a parking lot, Gately became a faithful attendant at the goddess Demerol's temple, right to the finish. The language is not accidental — the Substance held the place of worship, of the mother's warm hand, of the meaning of the day — and naming it a religion is the theme's exact measure of what sobriety has to displace.