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THE SAUGUS ADVOCATE – FriDAy, OCTObEr 21, 2022 Page 11 Friends of Saugus Senior Center member Margie Berkowitch and Saugus Council on Aging member Mary Dunlop Saugus Public Schools Superintendent Erin McMahon and her team – Andrea Wheeler, Gosia Knapp and Ryan Duggan – at the School Department guest table Board of Selectmen Vice Chair Debra Panetta greeted visitors at the Board of Selectmen’s table. St. John’s Episcopal Church Rev. John Beach Father Jason Makos, pastor of Saugus Catholics Collaborative ASKS | FROM PAGE 9 be able to sit down and look at your life and see where God is acting in your life. You’d be surprised. He’s acting in your life every single day. You know, he’s given each of us gifts and we’re supposed to use those gifts to help others.” And I think over the years – as I said before – the more sober I got, the more I realized that God was working in my life. The more interested I became – not only in learning about Jesus, God and eternity but also about my church and what happens in my church – how I could help people, because I like helping people. It’s such a gift. Q: How bad did it get before you started to come to grips with your alcohol problem? Come to terms with the problem? Deacon Frank: I wasn’t too good. I wasn’t too good. I drank every day. On Thursdays and the weekend, I was really bad. I was a functioning alcoholic. I could function. Q: Did you drink on the job? Deacon Frank: We didn’t really drink on the job. I drank at lunch. Q: Liquid lunch. Deacon Frank: Liquid lunch; not completely; I always ate well. I knew that much about alcoholism that I didn’t want to ruin my liver, so I made sure that I ate, which helped a great deal. But, oh my God, I would remember coming back from lunch sometimes and feeling no pain whatsoever. My father used to work at the same company. I used to drive him home, and he would say to my wife, “Well, we played ‘bet your life again.” Q: Joanne? So, you hung with him. Did you give him an ultimatum, “Clean up your act”? Joanne: Well, I stayed with him, mainly because I loved him, and I could see the goodness in him. And I was very worried about him. But I was beginning to think I couldn’t take much more – really. And my children; I was worried about my children. He always… Q: A good family man? Joanne: Yeah. He was always very kind. He was never abusive when he was drinking. He would just sleep it off a lot. So I felt lonely because I felt he wasn’t with us many times. But I don’t think he realized how close we came to … I started thinking aloud. What could I do to go to work or to support myself, who would take care of the kids? Q: In most marriages where you get situations like that, it’s over and you move on. Joanne: Yeah. Yeah. I just kept hoping that he would sober up. I really did. Q: But keeping the family together and his good qualities kept him in the game, I guess. Joanne: Yes. Yes. But the kids loved him very much. I didn’t want them to not have their dad. Deacon Frank: One thing that I would like to make sure is that people understand is you can’t quit drinking with somebody else. She could have given me the ultimatum, but I probably still would have kept on drinking. Eventually, some die if they don’t stop. But you only stop if you quit for yourself. And I never quit until it got bad. That’s what happens: When you reach your bottom – unfortunately, the bottom can be death for some people – but when you reach your bottom, you know at that point that you have to quit, otherwise you are going to die. Q: Did you make a promise with God … Deacon Frank: No, I don’t make promises. Q: Did you ask God for help? Deacon Frank: Every single morning; every single morning. It got so bad that I was asking God, “Could you get me through the next five minutes without a drink?” That’s what I learned; I learned to pray; I learned to pray to keep me sober. Q: At what point did you decide you were going to get into the Deacon thing? Deacon Frank: Oh, that was years later, after a lot of studying and a lot of getting into scripture – Bible study – Bible class. I learned a lot about the church. And at one point, somebody mentioned about becoming a Deacon, and I said, “What the heck is a Deacon?” I really didn’t know too much about it. I know we had Deacons. But I didn’t know what they were. And I started reading up on it and I said, “Gee, it looks like I might like that, but is that really what I want?” And when First Baptist Church associate minister Maria Barron (soon to be reverend) and Rev. Edward Bernard, the associate church reverend I saw the paper one time and they were taking applications for diaconate, a friend said I’d make a good one. After much interviewing and being accepted into the classes and all those interviews – and it was a very scary and stressful process, every year. Then you’d have a one-year internship. I interned at St. Joseph’s Hospital up in Lowell. And my first patient was an AIDS patient – very sad – it was a young lady and she died. We all had to go through something like that. That’s when you learn “Is this what you want?” It’s what I wanted. Q: Joanne, do you want to add something to the conversation? Joanne: I went to the internship with him, which was quite a good experience. And, actually, that’s how I got my job. The priest that we had to report to at that hospital – eventually, when I was looking for work, he [Deacon Frank] mentioned that I was looking for work, and the priest said, “Oh, why don’t you come here? And I was hired and worked for the Diocese for 21 years after that. So, it’s funny how God works in your life. That experience led to my employment. After the marriage encounter, we remained together. If that’s where he was going, that’s where I was going. And it worked out. Q: Deacon Frank, how many years were you an alcoholic? How long did you have the drinking problem? Deacon Frank: A problem? Oh, I don’t know when you cross the line from being a problem to being an alcoholic. Q: When alcohol becomes a problem to you health wise, emotionally, financially … Deacon Frank: Oh, when you think of all of the money I spent on booze at the time – I was smoking, too, at the same time. Q: Which is not a good combination. Deacon Frank: I’ve been off of cigarettes now for 44 years. I knew I had a drinking problem, but I didn’t look upon it as being an alcoholic at the time. I would now, but I wouldn’t back then. “Alcoholic? Oh no, that wasn’t me,” I said back then. “Na! Na!” – until I went to the hospital and I sobered up. Q: How old are you now? Deacon Frank: I’m 83. I’ll be 84 in March. Q: 83 minus the 48 [years of sobriety]. That’s 35. You were 35 when you decided to give it up. Deacon Frank: I drank heavily from the time I was in the service …1962. I drank before then, not as much. I was a first lieutenant in the Army over in NATO. When Joanne arrived after me being there a week, the waiters knew what I was drinking, and they put it down. I was well on my way from 1962 on. Q: Anything else that you would like to share that hasn’t been said in the interview? Deacon Frank: I would say that if there is any young man out there that is thinking about becoming active in the church ASKS | SEE PAGE 14

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