The Bottom

There was this fellow who could not stop his drinking bouts. Oh, he did stop, about a hundred times, with all sorts of resolutions. He just could not stay stopped. He kept losing things, cars, jobs, friends, home and health. Finally, one morning he woke up with a terrible hangover and thought seriously of killing himself. Then the light went on. He decided that his life was more important than drink. This is called "a bottom". As far as I know, he never drank again. Oh, he got the help he needed, for he knew alone, he was a goner.

When you are practicing ongoing bad behavior, hopefully the day will come before you lose all, that your realize the next thing you are about to lose is more precious than your bad behavior. That is your bottom. It is also called the beginning of conversion. Conversion is the ending of bad behavior and the beginning of a new way of living. Judas decided that guilt and shame trumped his life, so he killed himself. The Apostles decided that living, holed up in fear, cowardice and guilt was going to cost them a relationship with the Risen Christ. Christ was more important, so they lived, and became all Jesus believed they could be.