The Ninth Step reaches the least likely man: the A.D.A.'s amend, and the dropped case

pivotal · ~20 Nov YDAU

• When: ~20 Nov YDAU (the A.D.A. comes to Ennet House; Gately still hospitalized)
• What: The Ninth Step's reach dramatized on one of the most powerful and remorseless prosecutors in three counties — the Suffolk County A.D.A. who has kept Gately's picture "up on my Priority-board" for years — who must come to Ennet House to make a direct amend: not from mercy but for his own recovery, as a member of Phob-Comp-Anon (a codependency splinter off Al-Anon; his enmeshment is with his wife Tooty's compulsive tooth-brushing), and pitch dropping the assault/firearm case as the required cleaning of his own side of the street ("if I act on the resentment I'm doomed. I'll get no relief"). He has sat outside Gately's hospital room saying the Serenity Prayer and praying for willingness, and hasn't yet been able to go in — "Haven't yet been willing. Yet." It shows the twelve-step ecosystem extended onto officialdom, and the recovery institution's voice from the director's chair: Pat Montesian holding a powerful man's disclosure "within these walls, as if it were my anonymity," the disciplined non-directive reflecting-back. Plot-consequential for the thread's flagship member: Gately walks on the Canadian/firearm case because of the A.D.A.'s program. See Gately's timeline (event 57) (the amend received) and ennet (the House/Pat institutional layer).