For those addicted to nicotine, the thought of being able to quit smoking and have fun while doing it has seemed impossible—until now. "I Don't Smoke!" offers a very different approach to smoking cessation: an approach that focuses on the smoker, not the nicotine; an approach that looks at quitting as a joyous adventure; an approach that will make smokers laugh and feel good while they free themselves from their addiction; an approach that works. Dr. Joseph Cruse, founding medical director of the Betty Ford Center, applies addiction recovery techniques in this guidebook that will help every addicted smoker to announce with confidence, "I don't smoke!"—and mean it.

Are you addicted to Nicotine? Have you attended a smoking cessation program that gave you a good education on tobacco and focused on the cigarette? It's time to try a very different approach to smoking cessation. 'I Don't Smoke!' is about a proven plan that focuses on you—not the nicotine. It's an approach that looks at quitting as a joyous adventure. After all, you're going to be free of a serious addiction—it's like overthrowing a dictator. If you are one of the 47.7 million adult smokers in the United States, chances are you have wanted to—and have tried to—quit smoking. Eighty percent of adult smokers want to quit completely, according to a survey by Gallup and the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the nicotine in cigarettes is an addictive drug that can make quitting difficult . . . but not impossible. Now from Dr. Joseph Cruse, founding medical director of the Betty Ford Center, comes a program that applies addiction recovery techniques and includes the importance of feelings and increased self-worth. If you want to quit smoking, you can laugh and feel good while you are freeing yourself from your addiction. Using powerful and positive affirmations, retraining your brain, and calling in a virtual army of support from others, this program makes smoking cessation a lifechanging and joyous adventure! There are millions of former smokers who have recovered from their addiction to nicotine. Millions who can now boast, 'I don't smoke!'—and mean it. Take the first step and join them today.

"I’m still marveling at not only the artistry of this book, the playful erudition of it, the sheer entertainment of the storytelling, but also the life (harrowing and joyous) and place that inspired it. If that life wouldn't create a writer, I don't know what would. The details are terrific . . . Dreesen has captured a time and a place perfectly."—Ladette Randolph, Editor-In-Chief, Ploughshares “And what I’m about to tell you can’t be told straight, so needs to be contained by form, for the tale is messy and meandering, if not downright weedy and windy as all the characters who blew through our lives back then and who we had to bend into, grimacing and hunched over, holding hands so as not to lose one another, sieve.” In his imaginative memoir-in-verse, Robert Dreesen captures the stop-and-start rhythm of growing up in his family’s 24-hour truck stop and drinkin’ and dancin’ bar alongside the Pan-American Highway in northeastern Nebraska. In a life that can be described as picaresque, Kenny, Rose, and their eight kids make their way through a world rich with farmers and ranchers, writers and painters, drunks and ne’er-do-wells, horses and dogs, imagined visits from poet-sages, insufficient money (but not poverty), fights, siblings, honor, booze, and the Missouri River.

“You know I saw an article in Time Magazine a few years ago that stated ‘Asian Men are In,’ and it had a picture of a white woman riding the back of an Asian man. No Kidding. Like he was some kind of human rickshaw. Maybe you should take a picture of Sheryl riding me with a blunt in her mouth an' a dreadlock wig.” Following the success of last year's production of Obama-ology, multi-award-winning African-American playwright Aurin Squire returns to the Finborough Theatre with another world premiere – Don’t Smoke in Bed. Jamaican-American Richard and White-American Sheryl are starting a family together. When they agree to a series of 'bedroom interviews', they believe that their interracial relationship is the focus of the article. As both play up to what they believe are the expectations of the interviewer, they embark on a journey that challenges their relationship to the core as the barriers between psychological and social, sexual and political, public and private, melt and dissolve... Don’t Smoke in Bed is a stunning exploration of social and racial perception in contemporary America.

Baby Don’t Smoke is an exciting, information-rich and colorful graphic novel of a teenage Latina girl named Maria who lives in East Los Angeles with her mother, boyfriend and their newborn. She is lead through a series of dramatic encounters with sinister and friendly characters which climax in a surprise ending, leaving her with the resolve to quit smoking forever. The findings against cigarette use haven’t been new or remarkable for years. What is remarkable is the continued allure of smoking despite its obvious dangers. Since badgering and many forms of education about the obvious health concerns caused by smoking haven’t eliminated the problem, Baby Don’t Smoke takes a different approach. It encourages teens to rebel! In this case, against the cigarette companies who entice them into addiction and ill-health, and thus contribute to the illness of their infants and children. “We give people a pre-packaged, cool, rebellious identity when they can’t create one for themselves,” scoffs Doris, the novel’s seductive and brilliant villainess who controls Tobacco Empire. When protagonist Maria, a pregnant teen, responds with sarcasm, “You must be very proud,” Doris counters menacingly, “I’m not proud, I’m rich.” Baby Don’t Smoke presents hard evidence of the dangers of smoking in an imaginative, edgy, and readable format. Author Everett Jaime, an Hispanic American writer and artist, directs his short graphic novel to young parents and pregnant teens, and their social network of friends and family. Contemporary illustrations by Eliot R. Brown, with previous publications for Marvel Comics, skillfully drives home the message. The approach is perfectly suited to its target market-ethnic teens and pre-teens-without ever patronizing them. BaBy Don’t Smoke will appEal to • library Markets, especially High Schools & Junior Highs, and to Health Educators, and agencies like planned parenthood concerned with teen pregnancy and Health. • in Bookstores, it will attract parents & Friends of Young Smokers who will buy it for their loved ones.

Ava, Brett and Quincy have all lost loved ones to cancer caused by smoking. They wrote this book to help kids not start smoking. The book combines some silly pictures to make it fun to read with some frightening facts (over half a million deaths are caused by smoking! 8% of middle school experiment with tobacco products! Vapes are not danger free and on the rise!). Profits arising from the sale of this book will be donated to the Lung Cancer Alliance.