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The drugs don't make me high, they make me neutral.
He remembers saying that. It was still true. He wonders if it would have been true when Stacy was around enough to make her stay. He wonders until he realizes that he had the drugs then, but he had been so angry, the drugs had no chance of making him neutral.
He thinks he should have been less of an ass, less withdrawn, less grouchy, less angry. He thinks he should have been more open, more understanding, more available to her, more - everything that he wasn't.
He also thinks that, as horrible as he had been to Stacy, she hadn't been entirely blameless either. Not just for making the decision about his leg, but for not giving him the space he needed to work through the injury on his own before leaning on someone else. Though, his leaning was different than that of most people, typically much more subtle.
She also hadn't let him be angry at her. She'd argued with him incessantly that she'd saved his life. Maybe she had, but he hadn't wanted to hear that and he hadn't let her argue at him long before he'd leave the room. He'd needed the anger to fuel a part of his recovery and she'd told him to get over it and move on.
He is aware, now, that most of that had been his sheer stubbornness, but he hadn't cared then. He only sometimes cares now. He doesn't typically dwell in the 'what ifs' of the past - as Wilson had eloquently pointed out once before but, every so often, a random thought will send him back to think of a way to hold on to Stacy. Neutrality might have worked. If only he'd been able to find it.