The only thing that makes sense to me is this:
I don't think that I metabolized the 80mg dose before I added another 80mg dose, and it just kept adding on top of another, thereby giving me higher levels overall. This is the only thing that makes sense to me.
No, that's a given - that's what I mean by doses being additive.
At the risk of beating this to death, allow me to construct an analogy:
You have a bucket. The bucket has a vertical row of holes in the side. When water is put in the bucket, it leaks out of the holes.
The higher the level of water in the bucket, the faster water leaks out because it is leaking out through more holes.
This simulates exponential decay.
Now you are allowed to add one gallon of water to the bucket every minute. At the extremes, you can dump it all in at once, or you can pour it in steadily over the course of the minute.
If you pour it in steadily (one gallon per minute), the water will rise to a level where the number of leaking holes allows a flow rate equal to the rate at which you are pouring water in. (this would be analogous to a medication drip). There are no ups and downs at all in the water level of the bucket.
At the other extreme, you dump the gallon of water all in at once. The bucket will briefly be at it's highest level and leak at a decreasing rate until the minute is up, when you add another gallon. The swings in water level are greatest in this scenario.
Every other subdivision of adding water to the bucket has to fall between these two extremes. It isn't plausible that there is some magic "middle ground" strategy to adding water to the bucket that will result in a higher peak water level than dumping it all in at once.
