Fifty Years Sober : An Alcoholic’s Journey
by Ross Fitzgerald – Hybrid Publishers, Melbourne, $27.50
Alcohol sales have reportedly risen dramatically since everyone is staying home. Unfortunately, for those addicted to alcohol, it can be a life-long struggle not to drink. As Ross Fitzgerald clearly explains in his new memoir ‘Fifty Years Sober : An Alcoholics Journey’, it’s not a matter of willpower; it’s important to get the right support – and Ross pays exclusive tribute to Alcoholics Anonymous in keeping him to the straight and narrow.
“When he was 20 and …
by ROSS FITZGERALD
FYI : This version of my letter appeared in today’s Australian Financial Review.
Given the lifesaving work of Alcoholics Anonymous, AA should be regarded as an essential service and its meetings still be open to its members.
Otherwise many alcoholics and other addicts will fall off the program
Surely attending AA is more important than attend the hairdresser!
Ross Fitzgerald,
Redfern, NSW
The Australian Financial Review, 27 March 2020, p 35.
By Martin Hanson
Every few years around St Patrick’s Day, historian Ross Fitzgerald “reminds” everyone how the Communist MLA Fred Paterson was “bashed” that day in 1948 during a Brisbane street march.
Fitzgerald started out condemning Queensland’s Hanlon government as being of the awful, long-successful, right-wing Labor type. In 2007 he advanced to the allegation that a police officer may have bashed Paterson on the orders of premier Ned Hanlon. Now he links the event to the corruption that was exposed by the Fitzgerald Inquiry after 32 years of Liberal-Country Party …
by Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM
Speech to The Sydney Institute, 47 Phillip Street, Sydney, Monday March 23, 2020.
I am very pleased that one of my closest friends in Sydney, Gerard Henderson, is launching my memoir today.
When writing this speech, by mistake I had originally typed … one of my closet friends, Gerard Henderson.
Well I thought that was funny!
After all I do write satirical novels. But often what I think is funny, other people don’t.
Anyway, despite of everything in these trying times, Gerard Henderson is indeed launching my memoir here at The Sydney Institute, and I’m very grateful.
To put …
Professor Ross Ross Fitzgerald’s 42nd book, a memoir, FIFTY YEARS SOBER : AN ALCOHOLIC’S JOURNEY (Hybrid Publishers: Melbourne, $ 27.50) is now available.
FIFTY YEARS SOBER by Ross Fitzgerald can be purchased as a paperback and an e-book direct from Hybrid Publishers in Melbourne, and from the distributor New Holland.
Best wishes, Professor Ross Fitzgerald AM
This cautionary tale of corruption and violence should be told again and again
by ROSS FITZGERALD
Tuesday is Saint Patrick’s Day, which is an occasion to celebrate — but it also marks one of the most infamous incidents in Australian political history.
On March 17, 1948, in Brisbane, Australia’s first and only Communist Party MP, Frederick (“Fred”) Woolnough Paterson, was savagely bashed by a plainclothes policeman — almost certainly on the direct orders of authoritarian ALP premier Edward Michael (“Ned”) Hanlon.
This brutal attack occurred while Paterson was legally observing a march of striking …
by ROSS FITZGERALD
In ten years’ time, what will people say about the Morrison government? The Coalition’s deepest problem is not that the National Party has become a circus; it’s that the government itself has no major mission to carry it through the inevitable storms of parliamentary politics.
The Morrison government’s basic problem is actually the same one that characterised the Rudd-Gillard government. Apart from “more action” on climate change – which Kevin Rudd eventually squibbed and Julia Gillard turned into the electorally disastrous carbon tax – what was the point of …
Politicians must judge how much voters will sacrifice to achieve lower emissions.
ROSS FITZGERALD
In recent days, climate change policy has divided the Nationals as much as it divides the Liberals.
But the question “Do you believe in climate change?” is a curious one because it suggests that change in climate is not a matter of fact but a matter of faith.
The recent bushfire disasters in Australia have been taken by many to confirm that the climate is indeed changing and have prompted more urgent demands that the government do much more to …
From humble beginnings, Alcoholics Anonymous has saved millions of lives
by ROSS FITZGERALD
Yesterday, on Australia Day, I was sober for 50 years.
Since I stopped drinking and drugging on January 26, 1970, Alcoholics Anonymous has continued to teach me that for an alcoholic one drink is too many and 100 is not enough.
Indeed, the trick for an alcoholic like me is not to pick up the first drink, and to keep attending AA meetings.
The stark reality is if I hadn’t stopped drinking and drugging aged 25, I wouldn’t have made 26.
Yet had …
ROSS FITZGERALD
Joe Hockey didn’t get the credit he deserved as a reforming treasurer so it’s good that he’s being credited as an outstanding ambassador to the US.
At his farewell party in Washington there were glowing tributes from former prime minister Tony Abbott, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and Australian businessman Anthony Pratt. All said Hockey not only had done a fine job over 25 years of public life but was one of the most likeable and straightforward of people.
Australia has always appreciated that Washington is one of those …
Long after the fires are out we’re going to need these valuable Asian neighbours
ROSS FITZGERALD
It’s understandable that Scott Morrison cancelled his trip to India and Japan after the abuse he received over his holiday in Hawaii. But it’s an error of judgment. There’s a world of difference between an overseas holiday taken while most people are still working and when there’s a bushfire crisis, and, on the other hand, an official trip to deepen co-operation with two key regional partners. Provided the Prime Minister had fully announced the government’s response …
