Of the millions of lives saved and transformed by this extraordinary organisation, just as many have failed to grasp its simple message and the result has been personal hell and untimely death. Such is the destructive power of alcohol, society’s most pernicious drug.

On May 12, 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous had its fragile beginning in the US city of Akron, Ohio, when a recently sober New York stockbroker, Bill Wilson, fearful that being alone on a business trip he might return to drinking, hit on the idea of communicating with another alcoholic. After making inquiries, Wilson was directed to a seemingly hopeless alcoholic physician, Bob Smith. As a result of listening to Wilson tell the story of his alcoholism, Smith had his last drink on June 10, 1935, which is the date on which AA is regarded as having been founded.

Ten years later, in March 1945, AA began in Australia.

From its beginnings, the AA program emphasised alcoholism as a health problem, not a moral problem, which could be arrested, a day at a time, by complete abstinence from alcohol. To achieve sobriety in the long term often requires some kind of psychic change whereby an alcoholic person not only stops drinking but also sees the world in a much less narcissistic light. It is therefore not surprising that many members regard their involvement in AA as a way of life.

A key aspect of the therapeutic process involves what can be termed the mechanism of surrender. Instead of telling alcoholics to use their willpower, control their drinking or pull up their socks, AA suggests a much more efficacious strategy is to admit that, at least in relation to alcohol, they are beaten.

This acceptance of defeat often produces, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, a big shift in attitudethat unlocks new and positive feelings, especially hope.

Surrender in AA involves the letting go of control. Thus at AA meetings one often hears a speaker say: “I’m not a retired alcoholic, I am a defeated one. I’ve thrown in the towel.” To let go in surrender is totally different from fighting alcohol (or life). It is a giving up of the battle in order to move on. Despair and hopelessness, not personal strength, is at its source.

In an important article, “The Cybernetics of ‘Self’: A Theory of Alcoholism”, which appeared in his 1972 book of essays ‘Steps to an Ecology of Mind’, British anthropologist Gregory Bateson points out that the experience of defeat “not only serves to convince the alcoholic that change is necessary: it is the first step in that change”. To be defeated by the bottle, and to know it, is the means by which the “myth of self-power is broken by the demonstration of a great power (that is, alcohol)”.

In contrast, for an alcoholic to attempt to use their individual willpower and say, “I will beat the bottle” is nonsense because the I making this statement is an alcoholic I. As Bateson usefully explains, alcoholics who attempt to use self-control to fight alcohol addiction “will not, or cannot, accept the premise that drunk or sober, the total personality of an alcoholic is an alcoholic personality which cannot conceivably fight alcoholism”.

Few people realise Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung was intimately involved in the beginnings of AA. As Jung explained in a letter to Wilson, “alcohol in Latin is spiritus and you use the same word for the highest religious experience as well as for the most depraving poison”. Jung maintained that for an alcoholic person the most helpful formula was spiritus contra spiritum: spirit against spirit, power against power.

It was Jung’s deeply held belief that, for an alcoholic, the primary sources of long-term recovery were to be found in something like a “conversion experience”. This should not be confused with a religious conversion. It is a conversion to accepting at depth that, in dealing with alcoholism, it is not sufficient to rely on the isolated self. This fundamental psychic change needs constantly to be reinforced or the alcoholic will most likely revert to old ways of thinking, feeling and responding, and hence will eventually drink again.

There is a pronounced tendency for alcoholics who have stopped drinking for a time to come to believe that they can be totally self-reliant and that they can somehow control their drinking. Alcoholic pride suggests the individual is not really beaten. Instead of encouraging notions of supposed self-sufficiency, self-reliance and self-control, AA restructures the whole context and asserts over and over again that, with regard to alcoholism, the person is defeated. The AA proposition “once an alcoholic always an alcoholic” reinforces a fundamental fact. Thus, in AA, members never use the past tense about their alcoholism. No matter how long an alcoholic has been sober, they will begin sharing at a meeting by saying: “My name is — and I am an alcoholic.”

AA’s only theological conception is that of a power greater than the self. This is sometimes conceived as God, as one understands that concept, or one doesn’t. Just as the traditional stereotype of what comprises an alcoholic often blinds sufferers to the reality of their condition, so can the traditional stereotype associated with God lead to confusion and resistance.

But once the theistic, Christian (or any other) stereotype is done away with, it becomes clear that the notion of a power greater than oneself makes room for all alcoholic people, including atheists and agnostics, as long as they are willing to accept and rely on something outside or other than the isolated self, even if it is only the AA group.

At some time during almost every AA meeting in the world, the new person will hear the following phrase: “You may leave this meeting today and need never drink again.” Often this is something they have never considered before.

All the elements that comprise AA (attendance at meetings, the notion of alcoholism as an irreversible condition, working with other alcoholics, the Twelve Suggested Steps) are part of a continuing process of surrender that offers the alcoholic not only freedom from the obsession to drink but also a sense of meaning and a useful way of life. Maintenance of the state of self-surrender is the guarantee of personal recovery and a continuing source of hope.

Ross Fitzgerald is the author of 33 books, most recently My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey. He is also the co-author of Alan (“The Red Fox”) Reid, which is shortlisted for the National Biography Award.

The Weekend Australian, May 14 -15, 2011

The truth is that most politicians municipal, state, and federal don’t have the gumption to tackle a problem that is endemic in Australia: booze-related violence.

It indisputable that increased trading hours of licensed premises, in particular 24-hour liquor outlets, are associated with increased levels of alcohol-related harm to drinkers themselves, but also to others. The last two decades have seen significant increases in the number of licensed premises in Australia and hours of trading have been relaxed to the point of the ridiculous. We have also seen a corresponding increase in the number of alcohol-related physical and sexual assaults and in dangerously antisocial behaviour fuelled by alcohol.

In what could be a model for the nation, Moore is currently planning how best to manage late-night licensed premises in Sydney. The requirements of public infrastructure and services are clearly different from those required in the daytime. Investment in improved services and better design to accommodate the different use of city spaces at night are both necessary. Extended opening hours in Sydney on Friday and Saturday nights result in extremely high levels of antisocial behaviour, which have a severe impact on public order. This especially applies to Kings Cross, which experiences well over 60 per cent of all incidents of antisocial behaviour in the city.

Moore maintains that extended hours of operation are a privilege to be earned by well-managed venues, not a right to be abused by irresponsible operators. Importantly, in terms of curbing alcohol-related harms, her plan enables the City of Sydney to wind back the extended trading hours of the relatively small, but statistically very significant, number of rogue licensed venues. Under Sydney’s Late Night Trading Plan, base trading hours are granted permanently, while extended trading hours are granted on a trial basis for up to five years. Under Moore’s plan, poor operators do not get extended trading hours renewed, and receive only their base trading hours. This provides a significant incentive for operators to manage their premises properly and currently has the backing of the Police Association, the Australian Medical Association and the Nurses Association whose members see firsthand the devastating effects of alcohol-fuelled violence. The Sydney plan balances the interests of licensees with the need to ensure the safety of their patrons, as well as controlling areas where pubs and clubs are located. This approach involves rewarding well-managed establishments, while withdrawing privileges from those who do not deserve to have them.

Trial periods, which are provided in the NSW planning legislation, have been part of Sydney’s plan since its inception in 2008. The concept of trial trading hours is not a new one. In Queensland, extended trading hours for liquor licences are granted via renewable permit. New York City and Amsterdam require liquor licences to be renewed annually or bi-annually. These night-time economies are thriving and business has not been affected by having a licence on effective trial, and one which requires regular renewal. A report by the New York Nightlife Association in 2004 estimated that the night-time economy generated $10 billion each year, with an estimated 65 million people visiting the city’s bars and clubs annually, making the night-time economy one of the most important facets to New York City life. The same should apply in Australia’s major cities.

The current state Minister for Planning, Tony Kelly, opposes the City of Sydney plan, on the grounds it is causing ”uncertainty in the community”. However, the reality is that the NSW Labor Government will be easily defeated at the March 26 election and this will give NSW a new planning minister from the Liberal-National coalition and a unique opportunity for concerted action to tackle the huge problems associated with the liquor industry, especially late-night violence. A whole-of-government approach to these issues is urgently needed in all our major cities. In Sydney, Clover Moore was an enthusiastic and active participant in the Sydney Liquor Taskforce, which unfortunately was disbanded by the NSW Labor Government in late 2009. This potentially important taskforce involved senior government bureaucrats, and liquor industry and council representatives working together to find solutions to the problems of alcohol and violence in inner-Sydney. The City of Sydney has indicated that it would welcome the re-establishment of the Sydney Liquor Taskforce or a similar cooperative body.

State, federal and major municipal governments should unite to stem the scourge of alcohol-fuelled late-night violence. Future generations will thank them for it and may salute Clover Moore as a visionary for her stand.

Ross Fitzgerald is the author of 33 books, most recently My Name is Ross: An alcoholic’s journey.

The Canberra Times, 15 February 2011

“I was so enclosed and enmeshed in myself”, he writes, “that I virtually didn’t see anything outside”.

Sober for 40 years, Dr Fitzgerald calls himself an atheist. His AA group is the Higher Power that alcoholics rely on to remove their compulsion to drink. “These days in some sort of primitive ‘prayer’, I sometimes speak directly to the moon and the sea and the stars,” he says. The sight of a Willy-Wagtail especially cheers him up and the little dancing bird appears throughout his book. In the beginning is an alcoholic and in the end there is still the alcoholic, but My Name is Ross is one long look backwards at a wonderful life that would have ended prematurely in suicide had he not found a way to stop drinking.

Terrible hallucinations propelled Ross to get help after he was hospitalised six times in Cleveland, Ohio aged 25 and it’s hard to believe this sodden human being self-obsessed, self-centred, a user of women, an abuser of trust could transform into a vibrant voice for free speech, an author of 32 books and a trusted servant of many governments, as well as a man beloved by his wife and daughter and his many friends from all walks of life.

Full of humour, honesty and hope. Highly recommended.

Barbara Farrelly – South Coast Register 10 March 2010

The temptation, and Fitzgerald is clearly not one readily to refuse temptation, must have been to present this as a latter day rake’s progress: a jolly saga of men behaving badly. ‘such a lark! Stole two boots and a brass hat. Hung a notice of a bal masqué on the railing of a Baptist chapel, and stuck a board with “Mangling done here” on the Hospital gate,” as Dudley Smooth put it in a piece by Marcus Clarke in the 1860s. “Ho, for the breakage of lamps, the carrying away of signs, the petty larceny of gilt hats and wooden boots!”

There are plenty of appalling anecdotes in My Name is Ross – like his account of high life at a conference of academic historians:

”After our tenth drink of whiskey or whatever we were imbibing, the most appropriate thing appeared to be for the two of us to make a suicide pact – steal a car and drive it off a bridge. Which is precisely what we did. We stole a car, which turned out to be owned by a state ALP cabinet member. I revved it up, drove off the Camden Bridge, and finished up trapped in the car, perilously close to the water…. Initially on the critical list, I was in hospital for two months.”

The bad behaviour is not glamorized. But nor are opportunities for a good story neglected. A succession of figures are captured in vignettes, many of them drinkers or ex-drinkers. There are sessions with Doug McCallum the political scientist, who nodded off to sleep with his pipe alight, and was suffocated when his jacket caught fire. There are appearances with Josh Davis on TV Tutorial: “Although almost always half-pissed, on the television he came across as sober as a judge.” Barry Humphries has a cameo role. There are excursions to Mozambique, Vietnam, and Singapore, sometimes with up-grades and VIP treatment through being mistaken for the ambassador Stephen FitzGerald. And there is a sustained stay, much of it lost in alcoholic oblivion, in the United States.

This is both a memoir, and an account of alcoholism. The two strands endlessly interweave, as the story of Australian society of the last sixty years unfolds:
”Perhaps the most brilliant schoolmaster of all at Melbourne High was the eccentric, ultra right-wing biology teacher, Norton Hobson. After he retired, Norton confided to me that he was an ex-Communist and that, while at school he worked as a part-time operative for the Victorian Special Branch, supplying information about students and staff alike…. It is no accident that, later on, in my three Grafton Everest political/sexual “fictions” … the head of the privatized Australian Security Organization, and hence the nation’s top spy, is Grafton’s old school teacher, Les Horton. The character Mr Horton is largely based on Norton Hobson.”

”I’ve always been fascinated by spies and by pirates,” Fitzgerald writes. “While I was teaching at Griffith University, I was actually approached by a senior operative to apply for a position at the Office of National Assessments… an AA acquaintance in the Queensland police force suggested that I work for the notorious state Special Branch, of which he was acting head.”

Not all the anecdotes involve substance abuse. Fitzgerald is an acute observer of how society works, and adept at putting his observations into practice:
”In 1985, during the dreadful years of the Bjelke-Petersen regime, the head of the Australian newspaper’s Brisbane bureau, Hugh Lunn, wrote a very flattering full-page feature about me being the “Anti-Joh”… The editor of The Weekend Australian magazine, Jim Hall, had said, “I”m not publishing your piece on Fitzgerald. He’s radical. And he’s mad.”

But Fitzgerald had learned that Rupert Murdoch always referred to himself as “The Chief Executive”:

”I’ll give him mad, I thought, and at 2 am rang the toll-free number for News Limited in Sydney. “This is The Chief Executive”, I barked into the phone, “Tell that editor of the weekend magazine to publish Hugh Lunn’s piece on that fellow Ross Fitzgerald”, and slammed the phone down. And guess what, the next Saturday’s Weekend Australian featured a full-page feature with a large, smiling, photograph of me wearing my trademark panama hat.”

The photographed hat is a crucial element in the story he tells of how the Australian Research Council operated in handing him a five-year grant of taxpayers” money. The Bulletin had run a story on “the Successor to Manning Clarke,” naming five historians but providing a photograph of only one of them, Fitzgerald:

“When the selection panel – all scientists and mathematicians – met, they didn’t know who to choose when it came to the one place for humanities. Allegedly, a physicist professor said, “What about that bloke with the big hat who comes from Queensland?”

The ARC fellowship gave him five years of freedom from teaching, during which he wrote two political biographies, one of ex-Queensland premier “Red Ted” Theodore, the other of Fred Paterson, Australia’s only communist member of parliament. At least he produced, and substantially, unlike all too many of the recipients of such largesse.

These observations of the way our cultural superstructure operates provide a pointed context for the record of bad behaviour of Fitzgerald’s alcoholic years. And some of it is seriously bad. This is not a memoir of convivial Bohemian indulgence, but of solitary, suicidal desperation.

But as much as a saga of self-destruction, My Name is Ross is also a record of recovery and redemption. Alcoholics Anonymous proved his salvation, and he pays unambiguous tribute to its role in his regeneration. He offers an enthusiastic and persuasive picture of how AA can help, something which might encourage others to follow the path, together with a brief history of the organization. Having discovered that “Carl Jung was instrumental at the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous”, he even tracks down his son in Switzerland for an interview.

I am not sure that the underlying causes of Fitzgerald’s addiction are ever identified. He offers some attempts at examining his relationship with his parents. He details various sexual encounters. But the fundamental fear that requires obliteration remains unidentified. Perhaps it is just the fear of life and of death’s inevitability. Whatever it is, AA clearly provides an ever-available structure, with its regular meetings that are always welcoming, that always give the assurance that there is somewhere to go to, somewhere to meet others, that you are not alone.

Michael Wilding, “Quadrant Magazine”, March 2010, Books, pp117-8

At the age of 25 he was a broken man who, in a few short years, had gone from being an honours graduate from Sydney University to a man who, after many admissions to mental hospitals, living on what few wits remained to him, and having exhausted the patience of his many friends, had reached the nadir of his life with death closing fast upon him.

Last year he celebrated two events: his 65th birthday, which coincided with the 40th anniversary of his life as a non-drinker.

As the title of this memoir indicates, it is a riveting account of that life journey whose successful outcome he attributes almost entirely to the comradeship he found in Alcoholics Anonymous; it is, however, clear that much credit is due to his wife Lyndal.

In the preface, Fitzgerald makes the critical remark which, like many such, carries within its apparent simplicity a great understanding: “The fundamental fact is that, if, each day, I don’t pick up the first drink of alcohol, I can’t get drunk.”

David Christie, The Newcastle Herald, 13 February 2010

Fitzgerald says he drank to pretend he wasn’t afraid and because of a difficult relationship with his mother and his genetic predisposition to addiction.

In person, he seems to inspire active like or dislike; in words, he is immensely likeable.

An academic, commentator and author, Fitzgerald has had a productive life, one he believes would have been cut short by suicide had he not started drinking and by alcohol had he not stopped drinking at 25. Despite being an atheist, Fitzgerald is a staunch believer in the power of Alcoholics Anonymous and devotes many words to its benefits. His constant return to this theme could become tedious but never does, due to his talent for dropping in funny or poignant stories about himself and others. Fitzgerald’s talent for writing entertainingly combines with his openness about his life and insight into broader topics.

This book might in part be a step in the AA process of revealing past wrongs, but unlike much writing of this ilk, it can be rewardingly read by others.

Lorien Kaye, The Age, February 20, 2010

It must have taken a lot of guts for a well-known political commentator and academic like Fitzgerald to write such a brutal account of his struggle with alcohol.

The first chapters of the book, dealing with a decade-long bender that he began at the age of 14 , are the toughest to read – not that it becomes a riot of laughter afterwards.

The author doesn’t shy away from describing his despicable behaviour that shattered his relationship with his parents and harmed so many of those around him. Initially drawn to drink by its power to anaesthetise the emotional hollowness felt by his angst-ridden teenage self, Fitzgerald explains how the numbing effect soon dissipated, but the need to drink did not.

During those tumultuous years, Fitzgerald travelled the world but seemed to spend most of his time in a variety of psychiatric wards. Liberal amounts of electro-shock therapy and prolonged hospital stays were interspersed with lonely nights, emotionless dalliances and suicide attempts.

Fortunately, at the age of 26, Fitzgerald discovered Alcoholics Anonymous. The role that the organisation has played in his life is profound, and he does an inspiring job of describing his fervent belief in its healing powers. Fitzgerald argues powerfully that alcoholism is a curable illness, and that even the most seemingly hopeless cases can be healed with the support of friends, family and AA..

It might not be a ground-breaking message, but you will never see it put forward with more conviction or courage.

Terry Oberg, Courier-Mail, Saturday February 27, 2010

Professor Ross Fitzgerald is a name I hear all the time but I can never put my finger on him. He leaves parties as I arrive. He exits dinner tables at will if I am late, as usual.

Two clients for whom I recently appeared in court in difficult circumstances both sent me copies of Fitzgerald’s book, My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey, while I was deciding what, if anything, I should charge. They are gifts that keep on giving – and are probably all I will get. In reality, I received infinitely more than my few hours of court appearances.

Fitzgerald has written 32 books, fiction and nonfiction, but none is as important as the two I have. At 25 he took his last drink and pill. He is now 65. As an alcoholic, writing an autobiography is the stalking of yourself. Old schools of thought suggest Alcoholics Anonymous should live up to its name and remain the best kept secret in town.

At AA meetings, you were more likely to come across a satanic orgy than a meeting of yearning people trying to get or stay sober. Practising alcoholics tend to be loners during practice sessions and unless there are neon signs, electronic walkways or valet pick-up services, they might never hear of AA.

It is no use waiting for alcoholics to hit the gutter, the shelter or the morgue before they are allowed in on the secret. Fitzgerald speaks at high schools about his journey, disabusing the romantic dream world that teenagers naturally are attracted to in the world of excess. A drunk I met at Rogues Nightclub one night told me he was never going to go back to those Alcoholic Unanimous meetings. There was no room for anyone debating the virtues of the drink. And so it is …

My Name is Ross is a very timely book for me. The trouble with alcoholism and attending meetings of AA is that there is no graduation class, no diploma that allows you access to the world without returning to the halls of meetings. You have to go to the school of AA for the rest of your life, one day at a time. There is a tendency to drop out of this school. “How much more can I learn?” says one of the debating society living in your head, next thing you are a dry drunk, white-knuckling on a raft without a paddle.

AA is not a self-help group but depends on others helping each other. There is something in the human spirit that responds to storytelling and the DNA of AA is storytelling. One at a time, a speaker addresses the meeting with an outline of where he was, how he stopped drinking, drugging or whatever and where he is now. Many times it is like a stand-up comedy night. Sometimes it is a wake. There’s never a meeting that you don’t carry out a germ of an idea or a skerrick of helpful information. Meetings begin and end on time. Alcoholics need strict routine. You can always tape Underbelly, if there is a clash.

Fitzgerald writes that alcoholics are like pod people and can somehow pick each other out in a crowd. I don’t know about that but at meetings we are like fingerprint experts, pointing out similarities and dissimilarities in our groves and whorls. At times in reading Fitzgerald’s book, I suspected he accessed my computer files. His home truths were my home truths. The half-truths he told in drink were my half-truths.

He is however a far more matured human being than I would ever be, even if I lived as long as Methuselah. Fitzgerald had so much electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) before they used general anaesthetic that it wiped out many potential chapters in his book. He could ask surviving friends or relatives to write in and publish the lost years that way. Drinking and depression go hand and gland. He soared at school, university and in academia while sipping from rum bottles planted in cisterns during exams. He lived counter-intuitively and occasionally on liquid counter lunches.

Like many alcoholics, he is a hypochondriac who will outlive everyone. He won a Fulbright Scholarship to America where he spent much of the time in saloons, mental homes and in the arms of women who took mercy on him.

A psychiatrist told me I had an almost supernaturally excessive need for nurture. I spent much of my life hoping to be rescued from myself by women. Women are no longer attracted to shipwrecks who love the relentless rocks. I once snuck a glance at a referral from my GP to a new psychiatrist, “Charles, is a difficult customer with a lot of baggage.” It is little wonder our sessions didn’t work out with such a sordid letter of introduction.

So it is not on the couch that we alcoholics try to get well but on the hand chairs in church halls or school auditoriums. We respond to the sound of many hands cupping. I envy the meetings in Los Angeles in the 1970s when sobriety reignited the sex organs of men and women, who had meetings in spa pools naked, at least according to James Ellroy. AIDS wiped out nearly everything.

Fitzgerald’s book is far deeper and wider and funnier than the picture I paint. He has a prodigious memory, not corrupted by ECT or alcohol or drugs in the past 40 years. He gives us the highlights, the lowlights and the spotlights in a razzle-dazzle of words and characters. Alcoholics who are out he names. Others are called Broken Hill Jack, Cast-iron Kate, Under-the-Stars Len and so on. I remember some of them.
Anonymity guaranteed, Fitzgerald’s past did not condemn him to it. AA helped him not to live in the wreckage of the future. Long before the Power of Now, AA practised it a day at a time.

There are some quaint hangovers, so to speak, from the strictly anonymous early days of AA. Members of the fellowship would swap or pass on tape recordings of especially gifted speakers whose identification talks were sometimes electrifying. I got a plastic covered tape with Sir Anthony H on the white sticker on the side. His voice was unmistakably Hannibal Lecter’s slimy tongue-licking brogue. Yet we nod to each other as we pass back the tape as if the secret is safe with me.

Anyway, shout Ross Fitzgerald’s name form the steps of the Town Hall. He has come to free us, to free us all.

The Sun-Herald February 21, 2010

Later on, Professor Fitzgerald comments that “alcoholism is such an insidious disease that, unless we learn to deeply remember what happened to us under its influence, it can convince us that we are OK now and that somehow, despite all the evidence, we can drink with impunity or fix ourselves up on our own”.

This missive of My Name Is Ross is that it is crucial for alcoholics to remain vigilant and to learn how to live life on life’s terms – which, for an alcoholic, is particularly challenging.

I have known Ross for close to two decades. We disagree on some issues. However, before we met, I admired his article “Inside Alcoholics Anonymous” which was published in Quadrant in October 1982. Previously I had enjoyed the radical leftie teacher character Craig Steppenwolf – which Ross developed with his friend Barry Humphries in 1975, the final year of Gough Whitlam’s government, for Humphries’ show At Least You Can Say You’ve Seen It.

The very funny script was published in Quadrant in November 1975 – the final scene had Craig hanging out in the Ho Chi Minh unisex toilet block at West Camberwell High where he continued his profession as a de-educational strategist.

It so happened that the cover of the November 1975 issue of Quadrant was the only book or magazine in the Henderson abode which our elder daughter Elizabeth ever disfigured when she was an infant. Elizabeth drew horns on Craig Steppenwolf – as depicted by Barry Humphries. Our younger daughter Johannah’s one act of literary vandalism in infancy occurred when she ripped pages out of the Church of England’s Book of Common Prayer. Johannah left the Douay, or Catholic, version of The Bible unharmed. As Craig Steppenwolf was wont to say: “Do you read me?”

Ross and I first made personal contact at The Sydney Institute quite some time ago. As Ross acknowledges in his book, he is somewhat self-absorbed, has a “personality that brings out criticism in spades from others”, and a little bit of him goes a long way. Yet we get on well. He calls me “brother” and I call him “Ross”.

Ross can also be alarmingly frank. When a mutual male acquaintance in his late thirties, who had not married, told Ross some years ago that he was engaged to be married, Ross replied: “Congratulations. What’s his name”. The person in question is now a father.

We discussed Ross’ proposed memoirs at our occasional lunches over recent years and I suggested the subtitle: “An Alcoholic’s Journey”. It seemed to me that what was important about Ross’ life story is that an alcoholic can become sober and live a successful life and enjoy a successful career.

I was pleased to accept Ross’ invitation to launch his compelling book and I congratulate Phillipa McGuiness and the team at the University of New South Wales Press for the decision to publish this important memoir.

Ross Fitzgerald commenced drinking alcohol, while a student at Melbourne Boys High School, in mid 1959 – aged 14 and a half years. He had his last liquored refreshment just over a decade later – in November 1969 – and gave up abusing prescription pills on Australia Day 1970, just after his 25th birthday. Ross regards his sobriety as commencing on this date and he clocked up 40 years as a sober man on this day last week. Full recovery took some years. Well done Ross.

A reading of the early chapters of My Name is Ross reveals the young Ross as a narcissistic, alcoholic, depressive. By the end of the book it is clear that two of these conditions are in remission.

As for the narcissism. Well – Anne Henderson (who unfortunately has another commitment this evening) drew my attention to the photographic library in the middle of My Name Is Ross. It contains no fewer than two dozen images of the author.

Then there is the account of young Ross’ sporting youth. A wicket keeper for the Victorian Schoolboys team. A bowler, who opened the pace attack for a university team. A batsman who once made a century. The declaration of such achievements reminded me of an old ditty to narcissism, which I have slightly revamped for the occasion:

I am the batsman and the bat
I am the bowler and the ball
The wicket keeper
The pavilion cat
My name is Ross
I do it all.

Perhaps not quite everything. For the author reveals that he can’t cook a chop, or wash a sock, or put in an electric light bulb – but has always been able to find a woman who can handle such essential tasks. Or almost always.

My Name Is Ross is very much a tribute to the teetotal Lyndal Moor, whom Ross met when he was a recovering alcoholic and whom he married in November 1976. Lyndal is some dish and was Australian Photographic Model of the year in 1970. Like me, Ross married a non-adoring type. One of the gorgeous Lyndal’s strengths is that she does not put up with all of Ross’ crap – including his obsessive focus on his various medical conditions – all of which, reader beware, are listed in these memoirs.

In the book Partners (which Ross co-edited with Anne Henderson), Lyndal cited some of Ross’ illnesses – from “cancer of the little finger” to “anything anyone else has, especially if it is in the news”.

In his chapter in Growing Old (Dis)gracefully – which was co-edited with Lyndal –Ross described Lynda as someone who is not the slightest bit interested in illnesses. So much so that, to a Ross refrain that he didn’t feel very well, Lyndall remarked: “Darling, the pyramids were built by people who didn’t feel very well.”

Ross’ story of his life as an alcoholic is brutally frank. Put simply, he was a loathsome, rage-filled, drunk. Under the influence, Ross drew up serious plans to murder two women who had dumped him. He never paid bills or the rent. There were numerous suicide attempts, unsuccessful of course, including driving a stolen car off Camden Bridge in Sydney’s west. And there was time spent in psychiatric units and memory loss resulting from ECT (or shock treatment) and alcohol-induced amnesia.

Ross relates how, during his years on the booze, he was sacked by two universities. This seems a bit harsh, on reflection. In my days as a student in the late 1960s and as an academic in the early 1970s, our alcoholic academics enjoyed permanent tenure – along with permanent access to the staff bar.

As Ross now concedes, he was an unprincipled user of young women. Readers of My Name Is Ross might well conclude that Tony Abbott’s advice to his young daughters not to screw around was soundly based. Fortunately, Ross escaped revenge attacks from the siblings or friends of his aggrieved young female victims. But as one woman wrote to Ross, when rejecting his clumsy attempt at apology some years later, “obviously, you are still the same vicious shit”.

As someone who has consumed an alcoholic beverage at the Moor/Fitzgerald household while enjoying Lyndal’s fine cuisine, I can attest that Ross is not a wowser. He is comfortable being in the presence of alcohol. It’s just that he cannot trust himself to be home alone with booze. Ross understands, from painful experience, that some of us cannot successfully consume alcohol.

I have always held the view that there is something to be said for alcohol. Let’s be frank. Without some Australians having been under the influence, some of us would not be here today. I have not done any research on this (perhaps I should apply to the Australian Research Council for a grant – it funds much more trivial topics than this). However, I suspect that quite a few of my generation, especially those of Irish-Catholic background, were conceived on a Saturday night with a little help from Mr Carlton-United and/or Ms Penfolds – perhaps even a little Johnnie Walker.

This, of course, does not apply to the Fizgerald/Moor offspring – the beautiful Emily, who is here this evening. Emily was conceived when her father had been sober for over a decade. Ross relates how he was not allowed to be present at Emily’s birth – and then concedes that this did not upset him one bit. I concur. It has always seemed to me that, for men of our generation, the real challenge was to have been present at the conception – rather than at the birth. A task which is becoming increasingly challenging due to modern technology and lifestyle changes.

There are many insights into Ross in this memoir. When I first ate out with Ross, I was surprised that he insisted on ordering the dessert before entrée or main-course – and then obsessively checking with the waiter to ensure that his ice-cream was still in situ. It turns out that this is a family tradition, inherited from his father’s side.

Readers of My Name Is Ross will learn that, with at least one person, the author has enjoyed a telepathic communication. There is much to be said for this – especially for those intent on reducing their telephone bills. Also, on occasions, Ross “speaks directly to the moon and the sea and the stars”. It is not clear whether any of these entities respond.

My Name Is Ross is an entertaining read with some witty anecdotes of tales told at various Alcoholics Anonymous meetings around the world. But it is also a significant work – especially for its message about the link between depression and alcohol and drug abuse and the causal connection between addiction and some suicides or attempted suicides.

Here Ross’ advice is direct. Those afflicted with alcoholism should deal with their drinking problem first and then see what’s left of any other conditions. After becoming sober, invariably they will find that their acute depression was inflamed by alcohol or other drugs.

Before Ross moved to Sydney from Brisbane, I arranged for him to make a reservation at the (then) University and Schools Club on Phillip Street. On each occasion, prior to arriving at the Club, Ross used to ensure that all liquor was removed from the mini-bar in his room. I then understood just what a challenge each and every day is for Ross. As he writes: “Each day not drinking alcohol or using other drugs is the paramount fact about my life.”

Ross knows that he is still living on borrowed time because he remains powerless over alcohol. He also understands that, without alcohol, he can manage his depression. With alcohol he would revert to what he once was – a narcissistic, rage-fuelled, alcoholic depressive – and quickly die.

Lyndal Moor has been central to Ross remaining sober along with some of Ross’ friends who are mentioned in these memoirs. Ross has also benefited from the great work of Alcoholic Anonymous. AA preaches an uncomplicated faith – if a sober alcoholic does not “pick up” a drink, he or she will not revert to the insidious disease of alcoholism. It’s as straight forward – and as difficult – as that.

Alcoholics Anonymous is a path-breaking organisation – all the more so because it refuses to accept public or private funding. It’s all about people dealing with, and resolving, their own problems. And it’s all about dry alcoholics supporting each other in an endeavour not to “pick-up” each and every day.

Ross reflects on AA’s lack of sentimentality. He quotes George E. Valliant’s seminal work The Natural History of Alcoholism Revisited to the effect that so-called harm-minimisation by controlled drinking is but a mirage. For alcoholics, only the abstinence model works.

In his memoirs Ross wonders out loud how he became responsive to AA when so many men and women, who were and are much kinder and smarter than he, never managed to get sober for any extended time. To me this seems due to Ross’ sometimes annoying persistence. But it works.

Persistence got Lyndal to what used to be called the altar – assisted, fortuitously, by her determination never go out with a man who could change a light bulb. Persistence has ensured Ross’ professional success over four decades. And persistence has kept Ross true to the principles of AA.

Once again, I congratulate New South for publishing My Name Is Ross and I call on the author of this quite courageous memoir to make some comments. His name is Ross.

Gerard Henderson, The Sydney Institute, 2 February 2010

Despite these achievements, it is immediately obvious that the defining characteristic of Fitzgerald’s life is that he is an alcoholic, albeit one who has been sober for 40 years. So, although this book is his life story, told in chronological order, it is as much a meditation on the nature of alcoholism and the virtues of Alcoholics Anonymous as it is autobiography.

When I read on the dustjacket that Fitzgerald has been sober since he was 25, I wondered what all the fuss was about. After all, he wasn’t drinking for very long. The first couple of chapters, however, quickly exposed my naivete. Fitzgerald had a very unhappy childhood, caused, it seems, by an innate emotional fragility combined with his parents’ inability to overcome the infant death of his elder brother. His mother, Edna, appears to have responded to the death with a refusal or inability to show her living son sufficient love, care or affection. Fitzgerald’s father comes across as a much kinder but ineffectual parent.

Fitzgerald surmises that if he had not taken up drinking, he would probably have committed suicide by the time he was 17. Instead, he started on the booze at 15 and soon his idea of a Saturday night out was to sit in the local cemetery drinking a flagon of wine. It didn’t make him happy but he stayed alive. Remarkably, despite the drinking, Fitzgerald was a brilliant student, topping most subjects and gaining a vital scholarship to university. There, initially, he also had great academic success, again despite spending almost all of his time in the pub.

He must have been a charismatic and intelligent young man, because although the drinking got far worse and was compounded by addiction to prescription drugs, he managed to have relationships with several women and bluff his way into research and teaching positions in the US. There, however, his drug and alcohol use escalated to the point where he spent 15 months in mental institutions.

He was eventually sent back to Australia, where he encountered AA and at 25 began the period of sobriety that has extended to this day and enabled him to be a stable and happy husband and father, as well as sustain a remarkable working life.

The first third of the book covers Fitzgerald’s unhappy childhood and drink-soaked early adult years. It’s a sad fact that people – or perhaps it is just me – find stories about troubled lives more entertaining than those about happy and balanced people. As a narrative, the book reaches its climax a little too early. Fitzgerald’s life after he stopped drinking is amazing, full of incredible achievements that dwarf those of most people. But the pages devoted to this part of his life don’t provide the same thrill and excitement as those covering the drinking years.

However, this is a memoir, not a work of fiction. Fitzgerald couldn’t choose retrospectively to extend his drinking for another 10 years just to entertain his readers. And, importantly, in the latter pages he has many profound things to say about alcoholism and the nature of humanity. Most interesting are his thoughts on AA, particularly his experiences as an atheist within an organisation where Christianity dominates. As this fact suggests, Fitzgerald has always been, above all, an iconoclast and this book illuminates all the joy and suffering of that state of being.

David Messer, Sydney Morning Herald, February 13, 2010