The Essex Wellbeing Service Stop Smoking services are available and free to everyone living or working in Essex, excluding Southend and Thurrock.

All you need to do is fill out our online assessment.

For more information go to the Essex Wellbeing Service website.

What is Allen Carr’s Easyway?

Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking Live Group Seminars are a cognitive behavioural therapy (or more accurately a cognitive restructuring/retraining therapy). The method was devised in London where the organisation’s global headquarters remain (in SW20).

The method is:

• Clinically Proven

Two recently published Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs) have indicated that Allen Carr’s Easyway Live Group Seminars are at least as effective, if not more so, than the NHS Gold Standard Stop Smoking Service consisting of pharmacological products plus six weeks of  1-1 psychological support and nearly twice as effective as the Republic of Ireland Health Service’s  Quit.ie service (details in appendices). In addition to this, studies published in peer reviewed journals indicate a success rate of over 50% after 12 months.

• Entirely Drug-Free

No medication, NRT, e-cigarettes or other substitutes are required.

• 100% Safe

Over the last 35+ years, ACE has helped an estimated 50 million smokers quit without any contraindications which indicates that there are no ill effects of using the programme (also indicated in a large scale, gold standard RCT).

• A Trusted Method
• Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking Live Group Seminars have been around for over 35 years and are extremely popular with the general public & celebrities alike.
• Operates in 50+ countries
• Continue to work with Vitality Health Insurance after more than 10 years helping their policy holders to quit smoking
• Have been featured in the national media frequently for 35+ years
• Global corporate clients include Google, Facebook, Mercer, Vodafone, Mercedes, Ford, Total Oil, Esso, IBM, Microsoft
• Recommendations and endorsements from scientists, doctors, and millions of happy ex-smokers.

• Quick

It usually takes only one 5-hour Live Online Group Seminar via Zoom for a smoker to be helped to quit. After care includes:

• Telephone/email support
• Zoom back up seminars designed specifically for those who failed to quit in the first seminar
• Regular supportive & inspirational text and email messages for 6 months post-quit

• Easy to Deliver

The Live Group Seminar is accessed via smartphone, tablet, laptop, or PC and no special equipment or software is required.

• Inclusive

Smokers who live or work together can all access the programme at the same time and the method has proven effective for even hard to reach groups – clinical trials indicated that the method was highly effective regardless of whether the smoker was college educated or not, a heavy or light smoker, a young or old smoker.

What happens at a seminar? / How to explain the seminar to smokers

The seminar is like a training day and lasts for around 5-6 hours. You’ll be in a group of up to 15 smokers – people just like you - so you won’t be on your own. You watch the presentation and speak to the presenter and the other attendees on Zoom and it can all be done using a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or desktop computer. It’s really easy to do this and you can even try it out in advance with the friendly Allen Carr’s Easyway customer service team who will guide you through how it works.

The seminar works for smokers, vapers, and those who both smoke and vape – so unless you’ve already stopped smoking/vaping – do carry on as usual, without trying to cut down or control your smoking,  right up until the end of the seminar. There will be frequent breaks for smoking throughout the seminar so don’t forget to have plenty of cigarettes and vape on you.

The seminar presenter is an experienced Allen Carr’s Easyway therapist who successfully used the method to quit smoking themselves.

There aren’t any health lectures or photos of smokers lungs or anything like that – you know all about that kind of stuff already – instead you’ll be helped to identify and understand the reasons why you smoke in spite of all the obvious disadvantages.

The seminar will answer every possible question you might have about smoking and quitting smoking:

• Is it a habit or an addiction?
• How much of the problem is physical and how much of it is mental?
• How to avoid weight gain when you quit?
• Why you won’t have to stop drinking when you quit?
• How to avoid being one of those moany and grumpy ex-smokers
• Will you still be able to relax when you quit?
• How will you handle stress when you quit?
• Will you still be able to concentrate as a non-smoker?
• What about if your partner or friends continue to smoke?
• Is your problem “stopping” or “staying stopped”
• How to avoid feeling anxious or depressed when you quit?
• Can you replace the treat or reward of smoking?
• Will you miss cigarette breaks?
• What about your “me time”?
• What to do with your hands when you quit?
• What if you smoke to be rebellious?
• Why will it be easy this time – unlike previous times?
• What if you have a big day or big party coming up?
• What are the things you feel you’re going to miss about smoking?
• How to make it feel like freedom rather than like losing a friend
• Any other question or concern that you can think of

The seminar climaxes with a ritual final cigarette followed by a 20-minute hypnotherapy session. This is just a light relaxation exercise that reinforces the main points of the session and is always a pleasant and calm experience and is effective even for people who have been unsuccessful with hypnotherapy before. There isn’t any “going under” or loss of control – it’s just a nice relaxing end to the seminar.

You’ll end the seminar a happy non-smoker without any need for aids or substitutes. No nicotine gum, patches, lozenges, tabs, inhalators, nasal sprays, or e-cigarettes! The method is 100% drug-free.

The seminar removes any feelings of “missing out”, leaving you in the right frame and by following some simple instructions you’ll find that it’s easy to stop smoking – when you know how.

That all sounds too good to be true – but remember – hundreds of thousands of former smokers and celebrities have paid hundreds of pounds to attend these seminars but Essex Wellbeing Service have arranged for you to do so free of charge. There are endless testimonials from celebs on the website and you can take a look at them on www.allencarr.com.

You have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain and even if you feel very sceptical and negative about it – you have nothing to lose by giving it a try. Most people who attend the seminars feel the same – they’re as sceptical as you might be. The most important thing is to remember that the idea is that they help you find it easy to stop – so don’t expect it to be a struggle.

It’s an intense day and you do have to commit 5-6 hours to it without any distractions – so if you have kids you’ll need someone to take them off your hands for the day and you obviously won’t be able to work during the seminar either. It seems like a big sacrifice – but think of it as you might think of an important operation at a hospital – it’s worth making the time for it in exactly the same way as you would do for that.

Appendices - The Randomised Controlled Trials

Irish Study published in Tobacco Control:  Keogan, Li and Clancy (2019)
 
The objective of this trial was to determine if Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking (AC) was superior to Quit.ie in a randomised clinical trial (n=300) over a period of 12 months. Outcome measures were chemically verified.  

The conclusions were that (i) at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months Allen Carr’s Easyway was superior to Quit.ie, and (ii) achieved outcomes were comparable with other established interventions.

Trial Paper: Keogan S., Li, S., & Clancy, L. (2019). Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking - A randomised clinical trial, Tobacco Control, 28, 414-419.  https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/28/4/414?rss=1

UK Study published with Addiction: Frings et al., (2020)

The study comprised a randomised controlled trial (n = 620) which compared the efficacy of two psychological stop smoking interventions. Specifically, Allen Carr's Easyway smoking cessation programme comprising one 5/6 hour group session (plus one or two 3 hour booster sessions over the following 3 months for those who require them) and a 1-1 counselling service with funded pharmacotherapy available via the NHS (comprising one 30 minute session and four weekly follow ups of 10-15 minutes) were compared. Participants in the NHS arm were advised on e-cig use, but devices were not funded. The efficacy of both treatment arms were assessed at 4, 12 and 26 weeks after treatment. The evaluation was compliant with the Russell 6 Standard (which requires, amongst other things, a double blind, randomised design, chemical verification of quit outcomes, and the inclusion of all participants who received treatment in the final analysis). The study concluded that (i) with a well powered sample, no differences between ACE and a specialist stop smoking service with funded pharmacotherapy could be detected and (ii) both services performed at levels comparable to those observed elsewhere in the literature (i.e. in Cochrane reviews).

The study concluded that Allen Carr’s Easyway method appears to have similar effectiveness to specialist 1-1 NHS smoking cessation support.

Trial paper: Frings D, Albery IP, Moss AC, Brunger H, Burghela M, White S, and Wood KV (2020) Comparison of Allen Carr’s Easyway programme with a specialist behavioural and pharmacological smoking cessation support service: A randomised controlled trial.  Addiction 115: doi: 10.1111/add.14897
 
Protocol publication: Wood, K. V., Albery, I. P., Moss, A. C., White, S., & Frings, D. (2017). Study protocol for a randomised controlled trial of Allen Carr’s Easyway programme versus Lambeth and Southwark NHS for smoking cessation. BMJ open, 7(12), e016867.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/12/e016867
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/add.14897
 
In summary, Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking is cost effective compared with current stop smoking methods and also when compared with e-cigarettes. Cost effectiveness determined as treatment cost to achieve a non-smoker at 6 months and one year. Treatment cost is all training and delivery costs including property cost, costs of e-cigarettes, costs of nicotine replacement therapy, costs of advisors and other related costs incurred to achieve a who quits for over 6 months / a year. Furthermore, there is no on-going costs involved unlike with e-cigarettes since Allen Carr’s Easyway is a nicotine free quitting method.

Don’t forget - if you have any questions at all – please contact the Allen Carr’s Easyway Team on 020 8944 7761 or mail@allencarr.com