Hi doc!
First thing, dont fall for those e-book that claim to teach you secrets that will make you thousand bucks per month.
It is possible to make money with google adsense. But before that you need to create a website with good unique content. This will take effort. You need to get atleast thousand uniques per day (excluding traffic from sources like stumbleupon and digg), to be able to earn something.
Once you have done that, you will have to place a code (provided by google) in your website. This will display ads. When a visitor clicks on those ads, you will get paid. The amount you get paid varies. I generally get about 10 cents per click. it may be more depending upon your content.
Once you reach 100$ in this manner google will pay you.
Again, dont pay anyone to teach you about adsense. Pretty much all the info you need is freely available on the net. If you need help people are willing to offer it for free at places like digitalpoint forum.