chips at the Better Late Than Never meeting
It’s a bit like giving out chips over at the Better Late Than Never meeting, for Varying Lengths.
Context
The AA ceremony surfaces as Joelle's ready reference-point for any rite of belonging: chips handed out for Varying Lengths of sobriety at the Better Late Than Never meeting, the sober-time token so ordinary to her now that it becomes the metaphor she reaches for to explain a wholly different fellowship's induction. The institution's furniture — the named meeting, the length-of-time chip — has already become the grammar of her world.