Hal at the Inner-Infant meeting (pp. 804–805)
All through his own infancy and toddlerhood, Hal had continually been held and dandled and told at high volume that he was loved, and he feels like he could have told K. Bain’s Inner Infant that getting held and told you were loved didn’t automatically seem like it rendered you emotionally whole or Substance-free. Hal finds he rather envies a man who feels he has something to explain his being fucked up, parents to blame it on.
Context
Kevin Bain sobs for Mommy and Daddy a few chairs away, and Hal runs the comparison: he was loved, loudly and continuously, and is empty anyway. The book's anti-etiology credo — depression without an assignable childhood cause — with the envy of a man who has parents to blame as its bitterest clause.