Hal and Pemulis on the DMZ and quitting
‘Mike, what if I said I’ve been moving toward more than just a month off.’ […] ‘I mean maybe make a decision. Forever. What if it was that I was doing it more and more and it was getting less fun but I was still doing it more and more, and the only way to moderate would be to like wave a hankie at it altogether.’
Context
Behind Pemulis's closed door, roughly two and a half days into his secret abstinence, Hal floats the real news in "what if" armor. "Getting less fun but I was still doing it more and more" is tolerance described as hedonic decay — the mechanism of anhedonia in a single clause, spoken by the character about to live it.