Gately's share: mortified, and applauded anyway
It seems like every time he forgets himself and publicizes how he’s fucking up in sobriety Boston AAs fall all over themselves to tell him how good it was to hear him and to for God’s sake Keep Coming, for them if not for himself, whatever the fuck that means.
Context
Gately's whole podium confession is an act of un-armored sincerity he finds humiliating — he publicly admits that after ten months the God-thing still makes him "want to puke, from fear," that his prayers feel like brainwaves "radiating out… and never hitting Anything." He'd rather the Crocodiles "just grab him by the lapels and just tell him what AA God to have an understanding of" than have to invent belief. And the register-lesson is the room's response: the more nakedly he exposes his failure, the harder the tough-looking crowd applauds and whistles and hugs him. Earnestness works on him against his will — he's "both pissed off and ashamed" to be sincere, and the sincerity is exactly what the room receives as gift. The irony-reflex ("whatever the fuck that means") stays intact right through the moment it's being overridden.