So many books want to help us. They urge us to improve our bodies, our relationships, our brains. They worry about our self-esteem, our diets, our work habits, our financial investments, our children.

Let's just say, if we stacked all the self-help books, one on top of the other, we'd need a self-help book to help us cope with the enormity of it all.

So you have to give Adam Wasson and Jessica Stamen credit for creativity, if nothing else.

"Our goal here is simple: We want to help you not help yourself," Wasson and Stamen write in their introduction to The Self-Destruction Handbook: 8 Simple Steps To An Unhealthier You (Three Rivers Press, $12).

". . . Wondering which gateway drug is right for you? This book will help you decide. Not sure how much degradation you can take? Probably more than you think: We'll help you push your limits."

The pathway to hell is paved with people like Wasson and Stamen, but so few have book contracts. In this slim volume, the two teach readers how to hold their cigarettes properly, how to practice unsafe sex and - for those bent on destroying themselves in less hedonistic ways - how to achieve an eating disorder.

("DID YOU KNOW?" the book says, indicating a fun fact. "Joining a sorority increases your chance of developing and maintaining an eating disorder by 130 percent.")

This book is not for the easily offended, no doubt about it. But you gotta admit, it's refreshing in its utter irreverence.

One question has been bothering us, though: Isn't a book that helps you self-destruct still a self-help book?

Semantics, shemantics. Shut up and tap the keg.