the V.R.5 collapse: tennis or getting high, a dead heat
It had begun to occur to me, driving back from Natick on Tuesday, that if it came down to a choice between continuing to play competitive tennis and continuing to be able to get high, it would be a nearly impossible choice to make.
Context
The book's collapse-row datum, stated flat: the two engines of Hal's life have come level. Set against "continuing to be able to get high" is "continuing to play competitive tennis" — the sport, the drilled body, the whole E.T.A. investment — and the match is a draw. That competitive tennis, the thing he's been built for since childhood, can barely outweigh the drug is the measure of how far the withdrawal-physiology has already gone. (The substance/Disease side is addiction-recovery's, NOT built — cross-ref; landed here is the athletic function set on the scale against it.)