‘Fifty Years Sober: An Alcoholic’s Journey.’
by Ross Fitzgerald, Hybrid Publishers, $27.50.
Reviewed by Rama Gaind
It’s realism at its starkest. “The reality is that if I hadn’t stopped drinking and drugging at twenty-five years of age, I wouldn’t have made twenty-six”. This is Professor Fitzgerald’s 42nd book and an updated edition of his 2010 memoir ‘My Name is Ross.’
Ross Fitzgerald, an Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at Griffith University, has been a successful academic, writer, reviewer and commentator in the media. He acknowledges that it remains a daily battle to remain …
by Ross Fitzgerald
Founded in London in January 1884, with the aim of establishing a socialist society by peaceful means, the Fabian Society in Britain speedily evolved into the first modern-style think tank. It did much to craft the policies advocated by the British Labour Party, which was founded in London in February 1900.
The Fabian Society’s early success had its echoes in Australia. Fabian societies sprang into life in several of our capital cities after the Labor Party first emerged as a force to be reckoned with at the state and federal level. …
by ROSS FITZGERALD and STEPHEN HOLT
Serious interest in the voting patterns of Eden-Monaro long predates next Saturday’s by-election. It goes back to the mid-1950s when the study of voting outcomes was starting to take off as a field of research in Australia.
In 1954 Professor Leicester Webb from the Australian National University in Canberra published a study of the failed 1951 referendum campaign to legalise the banning of the Communist Party. In the same year Webb’s colleague Joan Rydon together with Henry Mayer from Sydney University published a study of the …
From The Australian newspaper online, June 10, 2020.
The great characters of the AA movement
by ROSS FITZGERALD
Since it began, Alcoholics Anonymous has saved the lives of millions of people across the globe. That’s something worth celebrating today (June 10), which is Founders Day on the AA calendar.
The inspirational story of AA began in 1935 when a newlysober New York stockbroker, Bill Wilson visited Akron, Ohio on a business trip. Afraid he might drink again, he decided to talk with another alcoholic. The person he found wasa seemingly hopeless alcoholic physician, Bob Smith. Afterlistening to Bill tell the story of his alcoholism he was so …
Re Ross Fitzgerald’s memoir FIFTY YEARS SOBER.
From Hybrid Publishers in Melbourne
“With alcoholism one of our major public health issues it’s an important book that may shine a light for those still suffering and their families.”
–Phil Brown, QWeekend, The Courier-Mail, 21 March 2020
“… a valuable handbook for the alcoholic who wants to stop drinking.” –Richard Whitaker
“By turns sad, ironic, disturbing and sometimes amusing, this is the ultimate sobering read.” –Steven Carroll, the Age 18 April 2020.
To celebrate 40 years of sobriety, Ross Fitzgerald published My Name Is Ross (2010) – the …
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 …
