I think Carpetsmoker probably has a good point with his physics book analogy. In the end though it probably depends on the person; some people would find coding below asm more fun then winning the lotto, others wouldn't give a fart, and some would probably quit after hitting arrays (assuming a language that supports them). A thread awhile back that involved peoples kids having a good introduction to computers/etc and finding it to much trouble to do anything fun in writing code and giving up on it, comes to the fore front of my mind.
With the amount of info the OP has given, I don't really think anyone here can do more then give free advice. For something more serious, I'd recommend:
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years by Peter Norvig.
I suppose, that poses the question, does the OP want to learn programming or just learn a programming language? They are as different (in my humble opinion) as building a chair is from using a hammer.
Something simple allows one to do both learn to program and learn how to do something useful (with a smaller headache). And the
hardest part of initial learning in one language, carries on into making learning other languages much more simple. At least, assuming you're not into enough advanced math or pure genius-like that such baby-steps are trivial.
I am young enough to remember the very learning curve that the very basic can have, on people that have no background in it.