the Spider

Boston AA's figure for the Disease of addiction itself, coined by Ennet House's volunteer counselor Eugenio ("Gene") Martinez, who "called the Disease The Spider and talked about Feeding The Spider versus Starving The Spider" (p. 274; his taste for "entomologic tropes" is endnote 139's joke). The figure runs through the whole recovery strand: silence is "pure Spider-food" (p. 278); your personal will "is the web your Disease sits and spins in," so "You have to Starve The Spider: you have to surrender your will" (p. 357); Gately's first willing prayer asks "for his own sick Spider-bit will to be taken from him and fumigated and squished" (scene 074, p. 359); and in the trauma ward, offered narcotics, Gately recognizes the wheedling inner voice at once — "it's got to be Gately's own Disease. The Spider" (p. 887).