Looking Back Through the Haze: Breaking the Habit, Finding Myself

By Liam Dutton

Looking Back Through the Haze

"I lit up to cope. I quit to survive."

Looking Back Through the Haze is a raw, working-class memoir about addiction, silence, and the long road to honesty. Liam Dutton doesn't sugar-coat his story. From his first cigarette behind the garages to quitting cold turkey after a health scare, this is a brutally honest account of how smoking became his way of coping, and how fatherhood gave him the strength to stop.
Raised in a house where restraint spoke louder than words, Liam learned early how to hide his struggles. Smoking wasn't just a habit, it was a shield. Through college, site work, lads' holidays, and long shifts at the steel works, cigarettes were always there. But so was guilt. So was silence. And so was the quiet hope that one day, things might change.
This memoir isn't a guidebook. It's not a lecture. It's a bloke telling the truth, about grief, pressure, relapse, and recovery. About what it means to quit when no one's cheering you on. About what it means to show up for your son, clean and clear-headed, even when life falls apart.
Whether you've smoked, struggled, or just carried something heavy in silence, Looking Back Through the Haze will speak to you. It's about breaking cycles. Facing truth. And learning to breathe again.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0FHFXXHGD
• ISBN13: 9798292254126
• Release Date: July 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 104 Pages
• Weight: 0.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"