How do I teach myself how to Program?

[Towknee]

There aren’t any opportunities for me to get taught how to program, but I’ve wanted to learn for over 10 years. I’m tired of waiting for someone to teach me, so I want to teach myself. I have decent HTML experience and want to step it up to Programming applications. I’ve tried books, programs, CDs, the works; none worked for me. Every book/tutorial exercise would hand me a sheet of code, tell me to copy it, and not explained what any of it friggin’ meant or why it works. I need to learn how to read and understand code and learn to manipulate it explained in easy-to-understand, plain English. Any FREE online sources, e-books, websites, documents, tutorials, faqs, instructional programs, etc. that could be linked, I’d REALLY appreciate it.
I have Microsoft Visual Studio.net Version 2003 (Academic Version). The program's tutorials are the same way as any other.