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 that I had escaped the destructive clutches of alcohol. This is a moving, authentic story, made more powerfully so by the warts-and-all way in which it is written.

I am amazed that Fitzgerald actually survived his alcoholism to write this book. He should be dead . As his early life races through the clouds and excesses of alcohol it takes him to the brink of destruction time and time again ; in and out of mental hospitals, subjected to electric shock treatment, suicide attempts, driving a car off Camden Bridge in Sydney all as a result of alcohol, drugs including LSD, amphetamines and barbiturates (all of which he swallowed, but never injected) .

The author says that ‘subtlety has never been my strong point’, but I suspect the frankness of this book is due in a large part to Fitzgerald’s ‘process of admission, reparation and repair’ as part of his beloved AA’s recovery program .

When I had come to terms with the initial shock of the book’s rawness, I realised that an alcoholic could read it and conclude that its utterly revealing honesty was helpful in that difficult journey from despair to seeking help.

One thing is certain : readers will conclude that the author’s much-loved wife, Lyndal is absolutely correct when she tells Fitzgerald when he is under going medical examination that he is ‘lucky to still have a brain from which to bleed’ .

The emotional struggle in dealing with his feelings for his mother and father is another painful recurring theme, and probably contributed to his anxiety and constant search for happiness. His love for his father is contrasted with his dislike for his mother, and ironically he was left with the final decision to turn off the life-support machine to end her unconscious life .

One of Fitzgerald’s few regrets is that his father never got to meet his wife. The three loves of his life are Lyndal, his daughter Emily and his father. These relationships are not just a powerful thread through the whole book. They have shaped his life.

The author loves to tell stories. The book unfolds as a conversation in a relaxed style as if Fitzgerald is telling the story over a few orange drinks at an Australian BBQ. His guests may be drinking alcohol, but Fitzgerald is standing fiercely with his non- alcoholic beverage in his hand.

He tells of his encounters with a long list of real life characters, mostly ordinary Aussies, and his yarns such as being mistaken for Dr Stephen FitzGerald, Australia’s Ambassador to China, bring a genuine chuckle to the reader.

Naturally Fitzgerald makes passing references to his numerous other writings and literary works, including the history of Queensland, his anti-racist views about indigenous Australians and, of course ,his love of AFL and life’s deadly sins. These provide a strong contrast to the boozing destructive behaviour of his youth and act as a beacon of hope for alcoholics.

His career as a political commentator and academic compels him to literally throw in the occasional political barb, such as his criticism of Gough Whitlam’s treatment of East Timor and even his opposition to my Christian generosity towards Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen.

For all the years I have observed him, Fitzgerald has lived by the motto of ‘speak the truth to power’, which is why he is both admired and disliked from one end of Australia to the other. He has genuine friends and enemies who will go to their graves either hating this book or admiring his guts for writing it.

His enemies will pick out his excesses and mutter behind his back as they have always done. His friends and the objective reader will see the journey of his life from near-death to a successful academic and literary career as nothing short of amazing.

As Ross Fitzgerald struggled to survive alcoholism, he came to understand that actions have consequences. In a world where alcohol daily destroys lives and costs the community a small fortune, this book is a significant contribution to understanding the struggle of alcoholics. As it dramatically illustrates, alcohol has no respect for position or wealth.

Now 40 years sober and 65 years old on Christmas Day 2009, Fitzgerald has by writing this book used his profile to shine a light on the ugly social effects of alcoholism.

I now better understand the demon drink from within the soul of an alcoholic, and it is not a pretty picture. This book has given me a better understanding of some of the homeless people I see every day in Los Angeles and the ongoing struggle they live with hourly.

This is Ross Fitzgerald’s best book and will make a lasting contribution to public debate on this complex and difficult issue. It is also a gutsy book. It took guts to write and, frankly, guts to read. But it must be read.

Review by Peter Beattie , former Premier of Queensland, Australia
‘My Name is Ross: An Alcoholic’s Journey’, by Ross Fitzgerald, New South, pp 240 , $34.95
Spectator Australia, February 12, 2010

Having defeated Wayne Goss, Borbidge seemed likely to return Queensland to long-term conservative rule. Yet just over two years later, his government fell to Labor’s new Opposition leader, Peter Beattie, for years left out in the cold by Goss.

Borbidge lost, not just because of a lacklustre governmental performance, an adverse reaction to a secret Nationals deal with the Queensland Police Union, and indecision over how to deal with Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, but more importantly it was due to a brilliant election strategy worked out by Beattie, an experienced campaigner and ex-party secretary, and Mike Kaiser, a protege of Wayne Swan.

The election wasn’t just important for Queensland. The rise of One Nation, which gained 25 per cent of the vote, was the seminal political event of the decade and Queensland Labor’s successful strategy in response to it has been integral to the success of not just Beattie, Bob Carr and Morris Iemma, but of Kevin Rudd and Swan in Canberra.

The brains behind the strategy was Kaiser, the father of FuelWatch, community cabinets and a master of regional pork barrelling, who almost single-handedly engineered Morris Iema’s last improbable election victory in NSW and who is now chief of staff to Anna Bligh.

Federally, John Howard’s successful strategy for dealing with One Nation kept him in power for a decade, in the sense that it was because federal Labor was unable to win in Queensland that it was unable to win at all. This was until the advent of Rudd who took on board Beattie and Kaiser’s brightest ideas, including community cabinets and pork barrelling, to win much of the country and regional votes.

The key to Labor’s June 13, 1998 Queensland campaign was twofold. Kaiser was the first on the Labor side of politics to urge his party not to treat One Nation supporters like racist, gun-toting mugs. Many of them were citizens deeply anxious about the changing and uncertain world in which they found themselves. Reform fatigue after the Keating years and the pace of economic and social change made them a volatile constituency, which had to be understood, not maligned.

Second, Labor ran a campaign that capitalised on the Liberal Party’s unprincipled preference deal with Hanson. By appealing to Brisbane-based Liberals to reject their party’s deeply objectionable tactic and taking an uncompromising anti-One Nation stand, Beattie and Kaiser were able to compensate for the loss of six seats to One Nation on the fringes of Brisbane and regional centres, with the gain of six Liberal Party seats in Brisbane.

The result was knife-edged. The addition of a truly independent independent, the feisty MP for Nicklin, Peter Wellington, saw Beattie govern with the slimmest of margins for his first term. Wellington only sided with Labor after Beattie gave him commitments about accountability and engaging directly with citizens by means of community cabinet meetings held throughout Queensland once a month.

Having effectively appealed to the masses and undercut Hanson’s base, Beattie came to govern with the support of much the same constituency that kept Howard in office. The last close election that Queensland has experienced was in 1998. It was also a turning point for Queensland’s conservatives, who have been thrashed in the three state elections since. The question for both the Queensland Nationals and Liberals is whether they have learned from those experiences.

First, division is political death. While it is true that both Labor and the Nationals lost seats to One Nation in 1998, One Nation did much more long-term damage to Queensland’s conservatives who were divided as to whether to do deals with One Nation or fight them.

Beattie and Kaiser overruled the handful of desperate candidates in Labor’s ranks who wanted to do a deal with the conservative splinter party, which these days is utterly irrelevant. But if conservative forces in Queensland can form a united non-Labor party and agree on new leadership that develops sound policies, then 2009 could shape up as the first close state election in 11 years, with Queenslanders being given a real choice.

The talented Lawrence Springborg and new state Liberal president Mal Brough need to forge a winning partnership for party reform similar to the deal Denis Murphy and Beattie struck in reforming Labor in Queensland from its unwinnable position in the 1970s and early ’80s.

Murphy and Beattie brought in new party leadership, recruited better candidates, broadened the base of party support, developed meaningful policies, went to the business community and raised significant money and, perhaps above all, showed a new face for the Labor Party in Queensland.

If Springborg and Brough can do the same they will change the Queensland political landscape.