vitriol answered by Keep Coming: the program that can't be provoked — "you might try to just simply…"
you might try to just simply sit down at meetings and relax and take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth and shut the fuck up and just listen, for the first time perhaps in your life really listen, and maybe you’ll end up OK
Context
Gately's conversion mechanism, and AA's structural genius: the newcomer cannot get thrown out, so his most venomous attempts to provoke expulsion are simply absorbed and reframed as honest sharing. New Gately sprayed vitriol trying to get booted; the Group answered every insult with "Keep Coming!" until he found himself, absurdly, "a prodigy of vitriolic spine." Because you're In the moment you say you're In and no one can kick you out, the program disarms resistance by refusing to be a wall to push against — and the Crocodile's advice distills the whole discipline: stop talking, "take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth," and for once actually listen.