The animals, the uncle writes, will live indefinitely if fed a precise ration of young seagulls at regular intervals. There are dates, weights, sketches of the birds, even a note about how the gulls must be immature or the effect fails.
I used blockers, read loads about addiction, went through periods where I was absolutely desperate to stop and managed two or three months clean a number of times, but I always seemed to end up back in the same place.