Lighting Up: How I Stopped Smoking, Drinking, and Everything Else I Loved in Life Except Sex

by Susan Shapiro

Book Overview

In the critically acclaimed Five Men Who Broke My Heart, Manhattan journalist Susan Shapiro revisited five self-destructive romances. In her hilarious, illuminating new memoir, Lighting Up, she rejects five self-destructive substances. This difficult quest for clean living starts with Shapiro's shocking revelation that, at forty, her lengthiest, most emotionally satisfying relationship has been with cigarettes.

A two-pack-a-day smoker...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385338341
• ISBN13: 9780385338349
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Length: 322 Pages
• Weight: 0.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Smart, Funny, Addictive

We're all hooked on something: love, sports, drugs, cupcakes. No matter what your addiction is, you'll profit from reading Shapiro's book. In it, she detoxes from the substances that are preventing her from living her fullest, best life (cigarettes, pot, booze, gum -- don't laugh...even bread & pasta, perish the thought!) With fearless honesty and self-deprecating humor, Shapiro walks readers through the process, which she tackled with the help of a brilliant addictions specialist (and wannabe writer) named Dr. Winters, who has plenty of issues of his own. You'll love the little Zen wisdom notes he gives her at the end of each session; feel the discomfort of withdrawal; relate to the negative reactions of those around her when Shapiro overcomes her addictions, one by one; and most of all, cheer her on as she confronts her demons. Packed with insights (and cheaper than therapy), this memoir should be required reading for anyone seeking to reinvent themselves.

Fantastic!!! LOVED THIS BOOK--from one addict to another...

This book was an honest and provocative look at the life of an addict. Many people have different stories about how they cope with being an addict, but Susan Shapiro takes you inside the dark web of her addictions in a completely fresh and mind altering way! READ THIS BOOK! I LOVED IT!

Read it up!

A fun, insightful, and challenging memoir by a New York writer who worked with a therapist to quit smoking. Along with quitting smoking, her therapist, Dr. Winters, helped her kick all self-medication and urged her to "sit with" and experience her emotions and feelings. It is a very interesting look at addiction recovery outside of the 12step paradigm. Highly recommended!

Well worth reading

A fan of Shapiro's first memoir, I came to her second book with high expectations and wasn't disappointed. Sue Shapiro is a master of the memoir. Her insights on the nature of addiction are fresh and complex and every chapter is full of the sarcastic, clever remarks that made her first book such a good read. I'm eager to see what Shapiro comes up with the next.

hope for the hopelessly addicted

as an ex-smoker, i found this fast-paced, fresh, hysterically funny take on addiction to be right on target. shapiro's got a knack for making keen, insightful observations, particularly on family and the nature of dependency - the hilarious scene where she goes back home to see her parents and brothers after getting clean really rings true. but Lighting Up is more than just a book about substance abuse - it chronicles the universal struggle to be a sane, functioning human being in this crazy world.