carrying the message only to the ready
Gately’ll slip them a finski or a pack of Kools and maybe sometimes try and talk a little AA to them, if they seem like maybe they’re ready to give up.
Context
The 12th-Step principle applied at the very floor: you carry the message, but only to the willing, and you can't manufacture the willingness. Gately gives the men he knows money or cigarettes freely, but "a little quiet AA" only "if they seem like maybe they’re ready to give up" — the same desperate-willingness criterion the House's dog test screens for, honored here as restraint. The theme's ethic is that recovery cannot be pushed on the unready; the most you can do for someone still Out There is a five and a pack of Kools, and wait.