the Gift of Desperation: nobody Comes In because things were going well
nobody ever Comes In because things were going really well and they just wanted to round out their P.M. social calendar. Everybody, but everybody Comes In dead-eyed and puke-white and with their face hanging down around their knees
Context
The precondition of recovery stated as a paradox: the only qualification for AA is total desperation, "The Gift of Desperation," because no one surrenders their will until their will has nearly killed them. The unifying fact of the room is not sobriety but a shared catastrophe survived — "Hindenburg-survivors" for whom every meeting is a reunion of people who each individually reached the same jumping-off place. Hopelessness is not the obstacle to the program; it is the admission ticket.