The Allen Carr method: how it works and what the evidence shows

The Allen Carr method, sold as Easyway, remains in September 2026 one of the best-known non-pharmacological ways to quit smoking. Supporters point to high quit rates, critics point out that the controlled trials can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

What the Easyway method actually is

In the form researchers have evaluated, Easyway is not a book but an in-person group seminar lasting 4.5 to 6 hours. The UK's NICE describes it as a mix of cognitive behavioural therapy and relaxation techniques, with no pharmacotherapy at all, ending with a final ritual cigarette. The book, first published in 1985, is the written version of it.

Conventional approaches help the smoker resist an urge treated as legitimate. Easyway tries to remove the urge itself, by dismantling the idea that a cigarette delivers relaxation, focus or pleasure. On that reading, the relief felt while smoking is only the end of the withdrawal created by the previous cigarette.

The Allen Carr method does not aim to strengthen willpower, but to make it unnecessary by removing the belief that a cigarette delivers a benefit.

How it differs from nicotine replacement

Nicotine replacement therapy acts on physical dependence, delivering nicotine without combustion. Easyway delivers none, involves no tapering and treats physical withdrawal as secondary. NICE notes that some smokers refuse medication outright: by offering them an alternative, Easyway could increase the number of quit attempts rather than divert them.

What the controlled trials show

Two randomised trials cover the seminar. The first, run in Ireland by Keogan and published in Tobacco Control in 2019, allocated 300 smokers to an Easyway seminar or the public online service Quit.ie. Abstinence was 27% versus 15% at three months and 22% versus 11% at one year. The odds ratio reached 2.26 (95% CI: 1.22 to 4.21) at three months and 2.17 (1.15 to 4.10) at one year, but fell back to a non-significant 1.65 (0.92 to 2.96) at six months.

The second, run in the United Kingdom by Frings and published in Addiction in 2020, compared Easyway with a specialist service in 620 participants. At four weeks Easyway was behind: 27.7% versus 33.5%. At 26 weeks, abstinence was 19.4% versus 14.8%, a 4.5-point gap (95% CI: -1.4 to +10.4; p = 0.165), so not significant. That trial was funded by Allen Carr's Easyway International.

And the book, the most widely used format

The book has been evaluated only once. Published in 2017 by Foshee and colleagues in the United States, the study covered 92 ear, nose and throat patients randomised to receive the book or not. Among the 52 analysable participants, 29.4% of those who had read it were abstinent six to twelve months later, against 33.3% of those who had not (p = 0.81). The 2023 systematic review rates that study at serious risk of bias and calls the data on the book scant.

How strong is this evidence

That review, published in 2023 in Tobacco Prevention and Cessation, lists six studies: four observational and two randomised trials. Quit rates after a seminar range from 19% to 51%. Its authors call the seminar promising and ask for further large trials, while writing that every included study raised concerns in the risk-of-bias assessment.

Those percentages read badly out of context: the 19% to 51% range comes mostly from studies with no control group, among people who had chosen and paid for a seminar and were therefore already highly motivated. The 2023 Cochrane network meta-analysis, covering more than 300 trials and 150,000 participants, estimates that about 14 smokers in 100 succeed with a nicotine e-cigarette, varenicline or cytisine, against 6 in 100 with no help. Easyway does not appear in it: the analysis covers only medication and e-cigarettes. Our overview of quitting methods compares them one by one.

• Volume: 2 randomised trials on the seminar and 1 study on the book, against 133 trials and 64,640 participants for nicotine replacement at Cochrane.
• Certainty: high for nicotine replacement, which raises the chance of quitting by about 55% versus placebo (risk ratio 1.55). Nothing of the kind for Easyway.
• Risk of bias: moderate for three of the four observational studies, serious for the fourth, concerns over missing outcome data for the two randomised trials.
• Comparators and funding: never a placebo, always an existing service, and the UK trial was paid for by the organisation that sells the method.
• NICE: guideline NG209 judges the seminar as effective as conventional services, without being able to rank it or extrapolate to the book.

Who it suits, and who it suits less

• Reasonable fit for anyone who refuses medication, who mainly fears losing a pleasure, and who can block out half a day.
• Weaker fit where physical dependence is strong, typically a first cigarette within five minutes of waking.
• No data during pregnancy, nor by age or ethnicity. In the UK trial, quitting was more frequent among more highly educated participants.
• Constraints: a long, paid, in-person seminar, not always offered in your language.

Nothing forces a choice: a motivational approach can sit alongside a treatment of established effectiveness. See our quit smoking page and our assessment of hypnosis, acupuncture and the Allen Carr method. A doctor or pharmacist can point you to the best-documented option.

Sources

• NICE guideline NG209
• Possenti et al., systematic review, 2023
• Keogan et al., Tobacco Control, 2019
• Frings et al., Addiction, 2020
• Cochrane, nicotine replacement therapy, 2018
• Cochrane, network meta-analysis, 2023