Customer Reviews

I Quit! Cigarettes, Candy Bars & Booze

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This work chronicles Linda Joy Allan's struggle with three addictions: food, alcohol and cigarettes. She talks about the first time she remembers feeling self conscious about her body and being bigger than the other girls in her class. But the most crushing blow was when she heard her grandmother discussing her weight with her mother. She remembers the binges and the highs and lows that food seemed to be able to bestow upon her. One day she is finally able to quit her food addiction but no sooner had she dropped the candy bar, she picked up the bottle of booze. She drank actively for about eleven years, hurting people along the way including her friends and family and a host of men who tried to love her despite her spiral into severe alcoholism. Regardless of all the love showered on her, no one loved her like her booze(in her mind). Eventually after years of wasting her life away and living very dangerously, she is able to get her life back on track.

Linda Joy Allan is brutally honest in relaying the life she lived while in the throes of addiction. My biggest criticism of the book is that while she spent so much time talking about the various details of her addictions, she spends very little time discussing her recovery. Her recoveries from the different addictions seemed almost simplistic. Don't get me wrong she credits her faith in God and spirituality for finally getting her out of the hell she had created for herself but I wish she had devoted a bit more time discussing the details of how exactly this helped her. She leaves the reader with light and rudimentary details of her recovery process. Far be it from me to criticize anyone's ascent into light after such a dark time but I feel that in glossing over the details of how she achieves her recovery, she missed a great opportunity to help anyone who may have identified with her struggle and tried to use it as a tool to help themselves. Just saying you stopped and now you are better does not cut it.

Her words in the last few pages are very touching and I felt that they really came from her heart. As someone who has never struggled with any addictions, I was stunned by the revelations in this book. I was shocked at the lengths that people will go to sustain their habit but it also gave me hope that people can change no matter how long that may have been at a particular behavior.

I read I Quit in two days and only because I went to a party. Otherwise it would have been done in one day. It snagged me in right from the beginning where we learn about all the surgeries Ms. Allan had to go through. I really enjoyed reading the book, even though I've never struggled with an addiction to Cigarettes and Booze. I do over-eat although not quite to the extent that the author has. I appreciate someone who can talk candidly about something so personal and difficult.

My only problem with the book is that the quitting seemed to easy. I'm not sure how to say this without sounding bad but Linda Joy Allan quit with the help of God, which I think is great. I don't deny the role of faith in healing. However (luckily for her) once she did decide to quit her addictions, she stopped cold turkey the first try. I'm glad it was this easy for her but I could see that discouraging others who may be in the throws of addiction and looking for help and understanding. Obviously there is nothing that the author did wrong, she's just telling her story and I'm glad things worked out the way they did for her, I'm just worried about potential readers of the book.

As I mentioned, God and faith are mentioned in this book but it isn't overwhelmingly Christian or anything. I had no problem reading it.

Many people struggle with addictions. They battle their desires day and night, hoping to fight back the urges to consume a specific substance or partake in a potentially harmful activity. Many are convinced they can easily quit at any time, and they deceive others and themselves that they are not really addicted at all.

Author Linda Joy Allan understands the problems of addiction all too well. She was hooked on eating and loved the feeling following a large meal. She was a chain smoker and craved the nicotine buzz from her favorite smokes. She suffered from alcoholism and would go out of her way to get hold of a drink. She spent the prime years of her life battling these addictions and while she is now clean and sober, the damage to her social life, personal life, and career potential is likely still being felt today. She wrote this book to tell her stories of addiction and what it finally took to kick these three habits once and for all.

One thing readers will notice right away with this book is that it devotes most of its pages to stories about alcoholism. The addictions to food and tobacco either didn't result in very many problems for the author or she didn't have as many tales to tell. She spends most of the time talking about alcohol and this fact makes the book's title a tad deceptive. I was expecting a more balanced approach that covered each of these three areas more or less equally. But it's the boozing that gets the coverage and the author has quite a few surprising life events to share that involved her drinking.

Most of the pages of this book are devoted to stories involving excessive drinking and even though this is probably covered a little too much, I have to admit that I found the author's struggle very interesting, not because I can relate to her problems myself, but because she had so, so many problems! Just when you thought she had hit the end of her addiction, was going to shape up, and nothing else could go wrong, she experiences yet another episode of misjudgment. You start to wonder if her slow demise will ever stop. She has issues with men and destroys any chance for a serious personal relationship because of her drinking. She drives drunk without a second thought. She shoots off her mouth and makes comments she later regrets. It's just one thing after another.

Well, the addictions are finally under control by book's end but the author didn't cure herself through twelve step programs or traditional means. She beat her addiction through faith. The other methods didn't work but once she renewed her faith, she was able to beat her addictions once and for all. One thing I like about her selected method is that, while it worked for her, the author doesn't suggest that the faith method is the only way to go. This is good, because while religion is certainly useful to some people and it has helped many people overcome problems, it is not something that will work for everyone and I respect the author for not making that type of generalized assumption.

Taken as a whole, this is a fairly interesting book about addiction and it will likely rate most highly among readers who can relate to the author's many struggles. It isn't a very well balanced book and it should have dedicated more pages to the recovery phase. But it is still a decent effort and the endless stories about partying to excess will shock and amaze many readers.

In "I Quit," Linda Joy Allan tells the story of her life and how she got caught up in some very addictive behaviors. She smoked for twenty-eight years, drank for twelve and much of her childhood was spent overeating. There were some other compulsive behaviors as well. As she tells her story, you can see how the pain of experiences that went through in her childhood caused her to escape to her addictions. She shares some very sad, serious events with us.
She was engaging in compulsive behaviors that would give her a rush. The euphoria caused by either doing something that she shouldn't or what would come from the alcohol or nicotine helped her feel alive. Most of her personal experiences left her feeling sad and full of despair. She started eating compulsively when she was still young. Being an overweight teen did not help her feel accepted with others. This is where the cycle started.
Turning her compulsive eating over to God helped her escape that cycle, but it opened up doors for other addictions to enter, such as smoking and drinking. The drinking cost her many relationships and she also was devastating her family. Seeing what she was doing to her mother really opened her eyes up. She started engaging in healthy behaviors and has realized that her life is so much better without the addictions clogging her thoughts. The addictions were keeping her from living and from achieving her goals. Giving up her addictions opened up avenues in her life where she could start living a real authentic life. She no longer has to worry about how she got home the night before or worry about getting to work with a hangover.
I am so glad that Linda shared her story. Reading about her life from her childhood made me feel like I knew her and I was suffering along with her. As she got into her bad behaviors, I felt so sad that someone who had gone through so much, was throwing her life away. As she overcame her addictions, I felt like I was cheering alongside her. Connecting to her spiritual side and God really helped save her.
I think that readers will be able to relate to Linda's story. If they have compulsions and addictions, it will be wonderful for them to know that they can be overcome and life will get better. For someone who is in a relationship with a person like this, it will give them better insight into their behavior. It will also show them that their addictions can be overcome, however, it the person with the addictions has to be the one to make that choice. This person also might need to leave their life to be able to do so.
"I Quit" is a must read for people who are addicted; people who are dealing with friends and families of addicts; and people who work with people who have addictions. Everyone who reads this will gain tremendous insight. Thanks so much to Linda Joy Allan for being willing to let us into her world.

Linda Joy Allan once weighed over 200 pounds and lived for her next meal. She began smoking at the age of 16 and didn't quit until her 40's. For over a decade her alcohol abuse took over her life, making her unreliable, antiganistic and forcing her family to keep their distance for their own good. The main difficulty of this story is the actual story of the recovery is without detail and all too brief. The moment of self realization is all too brief and superficially related. However, I think this may be the reality for many who have overcome addictions. The realization that one's life is way off track is made and then it's the old "fake it until you make it" technique. After numerous addiction recovery stories filled with self loathing, constant turmoil her honesty is refreshing. many recovering addicts don't really understand themselves how they made it out of the mess they created. Allen does seem to take a bit too much relish in the retelling of her addiction and its toll. That said, instead of continuing self recrimerations and angst, Allen is refreshingly straightforward in her recovery.

I Quit: Cigarettes, Candy Bars, and Booze is the courageous account of one woman's struggle to overcome three addictions. One woman, three addictions, the odds are not in Linda Joy Allen's favor, yet she manages to do what many others have failed to do on numerous occasions and some with grave consequences.

Allen isn't like most people you meet; I think she demonstrates that as her life's story unfolds. Allen wasn't born overweight, a plus size, with a full figure, or whatever term society dubs as sympathetically correct. She was exposed to hurtful conditions and situations as a child and became bitter because of it as a teen and then carries that approach over into adulthood.

Like so many of us, she finds comfort in food, therefore she eats...binges, repeatedly. Needless to say the pounds attach themselves to her once "average" body. At this point, she has to contend with being overweight and in her fragile state of mind the weight factor was the fuel added to the fire.

Next Allen is introduced to smoking cigarettes. After failing one diet plan after another Allen becomes desperate to lose weight and a friend tells her that cigarettes will cure her appetite. Whoa - although this may be true to some extent (this is not based on personal experience) what is that in comparison to the potential of developing cancer? Is it really worth the risk? Apparently for Allen, apparently for a lot of people.

In our society weight can make or break you. From the celebrities to the commoners, we are all painfully aware of our weight and are willing to go the extra mile to reach status quo. Image is everything in the world we live in today. Sad but true.

Finally, to drown everything out, the hurt, the pain, the feelings of worthlessness, the guilt, and the shame, she lavishes herself in liquor. Alcohol, in my opinion had the greatest negative impact on her life because it took her out of her senses. At least, with food binging and smoking she still has the ability to make a conscience decision. However, alcohol robbed her of her ability to make a sound conscience decision . She would start off with just one drink, then another, then another. She would wake from a drunken stupor and have no recollection of the events that happened after those first few drinks.

Allen is an ordinary woman with extraordinary perseverance. She takes the phrase "I Quit" to another level. For all the addicts, let Allen be an inspiration to you. She called on an inner strength that empowered her to kick the habit out the park. She's an ordinary woman, who endured some major obstacles in her life, many of them you may be able to relate to as well, but she found a way to overcome. Will you?

In "I Quit", Linda Joy Allen openly shares her previous addictions to drinking, smoking and over eating. She describs strong, compulsive desires to overeat, drink and smoke ruled her life.

In the book "I Quit" Linda Joy Allen openly shares her previous addictions to drinking, smoking and over eating. She smoked from the ages of 16 to 44. Drank so heavily for 12 years that she would forget details about the night before like where she parked her car and/or who she spent the night with. And she ate compulsively tipping the scale at over 200 pounds. Throughout the book Linda, describes in detail how these behaviors ruled her life. It was shocking to read some of the stories. On her birthday for example, she drank 3 beers before meeting her family for dinner. At the restaurant she quaffed down several more drinks. After dinner her family would not allow her to drive, so she reluctantly gets in the car with her mother, but quickly excuses herself to use the restroom. Instead of going to the restroom she sneaks into a bar and resumes drinking. Her mother finds her and insists on driving her home. When they reach a corner, Linda jumps out of the car and rushes into another bar and orders a drink!

Linda is brutally honest about her behavior. She also shares that she overcame her addictions through her spirituality etc. However, this is really not a book to read if you are looking for help in overcoming addictions. Linda has some light bulb moments and she overcame her problems, but she doesn't really share a lot of details about her road to recovery. Also the book cover blurb describes her "courageous account ...and provides hope for everyone caught in this trap" but I didn't really feel her struggling in the book. I cringed at some of the things she did. And she is very honest. But she describes everything so matter of factly, you really don't feel the raw emotion inside of her. It was more like, I drank, smoke and ate a lot and I did some stuff I am not proud of, and eventually it just clicked that I needed to clean up my behavior. Overall the 246 page softcover book is a solid read describing one woman's addictive behavior, but not a book to inspire one to resolve their own addictions.


~ Lee Mellott

Addiction is a tough thing to deal with. Three of them would be a nightmare. "I Quit! Cigarettes, Candy Bars, and Booze" is Linda Joy Allan's inner struggle to overcome the three addictions that plagued her life and that were ruining her health and her life. Through her own sheer determination and will power, she freed herself of her demons, improved her health, and mended broken relationships. "I Quit!" is an encouraging tale, sure to motivate readers.

I just finished reading "I Quit!" I can totally relate to Linda's story. Addictions can be depressing to hear about but the book was written with humor and honesty. This is not a "how to" book but is meant to inspire those with addictions that it is possible to overcome them and live the life you have always wanted.

I was disappointed in this book bc I expected to find solutions on how to recover from substance/food abuse, e.g., specific methods. It was a great read, but the book was nothing more than a biographical account of the author's struggle w/ addiction. I didn't learn any new skills.