HIS name is Ross and he’s an alcoholic. Don’t blame me. He outed himself in his own book. He can thank the Almighty God that no one reads any more or everyone will be pointing at him. On the other hand he has no one to blame but himself. He doesn’t even believe in God so he adds “Please” before the Serenity Prayer so it goes “Please God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to …
‘My Name Is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey’ is more than just a memoir. As Ross Fitzgerald makes clear, this is a book with a message. It can be located at the end of Chapter 10 where the author writes that one of the functions of this work is to reinforce this simple message , that “an alcoholic is a sick person who can recover, not a bad person who needs to get good, or a weak person who needs to be strong.
Later on, Professor Fitzgerald comments that “alcoholism is …
NOT every political player is naturally suited to doing the hard yards on the opposition benches.
With the government controlling the treasury purse strings, not to mention the parliamentary agenda, it is a simple matter to dominate the news cycle with a media drop. Announcing new programs and spending is always newsworthy, and carries more weight than opposition policies outside of the election campaign.
To combat this, an opposition shadow minister has to be relentless, quick off the mark and able to cut through the jargon with a memorable line. It is …
Ross Fitzgerald has plenty to write about in this memoir. He is the author of 32 published books, a broadcaster, film producer, columnist, academic, outspoken opponent of Queensland’s Bjelke-Petersen regime, political commentator and current and past member of numerous bodies ranging from the NSW State Parole Authority to the NSW Heritage Council. He is also a fellow book reviewer for the Herald, although it should be pointed out that we have never met.
Despite these achievements, it is immediately obvious that the defining characteristic of Fitzgerald’s life is that he …
Review by Peter Beattie, Former Premier of Queensland, Australia
The raw honesty of “My name is Ross: An Alcoholics Journey is compelling, confrontational and breathtaking . To reveal so much of himself in such candor show Professor Fitzgerald was deadly serious in his stated aim to help and encourage other alcoholics in their struggle with the demon drink.
Few well-known authors would have had the guts to write such a book .
By a third of the way through this painful journey I felt compelled to offer a silent prayer of thanks …
Alcohol must stop being such an intrinsic part of Australian life if the wave of alcohol-fuelled violence is to be stopped, a leading expert in the field said yesterday.
Griffith University Emeritus Professor Ross Fitzgerald, a member of the NSW Government Expert Advisory Committee on Alcohol and other Drugs, has battled with alcohol addiction for most of his life.
Professor Fitzgerald has been sober for 40 years, with his last drink on Australia Day 1970.
“That means I’ve had 40 more years on the planet than I otherwise would have had,” he told …
Speech in response to Gerard Henderson’s launch of Ross Fitzgerald, My Name is Ross – An Alcoholic’s Journey (New South Books) 6pm Tuesday February 2, 2010, Clayton Utz Seminar Room, Level 30, 1 O’Connell Street Sydney.
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Thank you Gerard for a friendship that has lasted many, many years.
I remember once telling Gerard that I thought I was becoming more neurotic. To which Gerard replied. “That’s scarcely possible!”
I’d especially like to thank Nigel Marsh who suggested that I write a memoir with my alcoholism at its core; my Brisbane-based agent …
HERE I am, stretched out straight and still, enclosed in a tunnel, having an MRI brain scan at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney to find out why I’m bleeding from the brain in four places.
The only way I can survive the 25-minute claustrophobic ordeal is to wear a sleeping mask and recite, like a mantra, the Serenity Prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
My situation brings back deeply buried memories of …
MANY great writers were alcoholics. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Dorothy Parker, James Joyce and Henry Lawson are but a few from a very long list. Shakespeare’s drinking habits are not known, but several of his most memorable characters put away plenty of grog. The Porter in Macbeth, severely hungover, pronounces to his aristocratic betters that drink is a great provoker of three things . . . nosepainting, sleep and urine.
For Ross Fitzgerald, those three afflictions must have seemed relatively trivial. Starting at the age of 15, he drank for …
IT would be easy to fill every shelf in a bookshop with books published on, for, about and by alcoholics. A quick search online reveals thousands of books on alcoholism, from self-help to the confessional, and everything in between.
Australia is a nation whose identity, for better or worse, rests squarely on the consumption of alcohol. It is part of our social fabric and always has been. Captain James Cook took beer with him on the Endeavour and the first settlers brought beer with them in 1788. Our first prime minister …
X marks the rot as we go the way of China and Iran
THE last couple of months have seen a tsunami of censorship wash over Australia. Once we were a nation where the freedom of non-violent ideas and speech was guaranteed but now we are sadly approaching China and Iran, as one of the worst nanny states in the world.
Last month a Sydney man became the first person in Australia to be jailed for selling an X-rated …
