Columnist says one-day Allen Carr course ended 160-a-day vaping habit
Mary Killen, who reported vaping up to 160 times daily, attended a £379 Easyway seminar and said she has not vaped three weeks later
Daily Mail columnist Mary Killen said she stopped vaping overnight after attending a one-day Allen Carr Easyway seminar in south London, ending a habit she described as reaching about 160 uses a day and costing roughly £20 a week.
Killen, who wrote that she had vaped for about two years and had moved from around 20 uses a day to 40 and then to 160, said she felt irritable and unable to concentrate when she ran out of cartridges. She paid £379 for the 10 a.m.–5 p.m. course at the Allen Carr headquarters in Raynes Park, which included a money-back guarantee if attendees did not quit, and said she had not vaped three weeks after the session.
In her account, Killen described the day-long programme as combining classroom instruction and a concluding 40-minute hypnotherapy session. She wrote that the instructor, identified as Colleen, delivered a series of 50-minute talks explaining nicotine dependence and how the habit is sustained by repeated cycles of withdrawal and relief. During the course, attendees were allowed to step outside to vape between sessions.
Killen said the seminar framed nicotine use as a "tender trap," arguing that people did not need nicotine as children and that the substance creates the stress it appears to relieve. One attendee, she reported, identified herself as a tobacco industry employee and warned that nicotine products such as snus pellets were being used to recruit new users by providing discreet, long-lasting nicotine doses.
The Allen Carr method, known as Easyway, was founded by Allen Carr, who gave up his accountancy career in 1983 to run seminars after quitting his own heavy cigarette habit. Carr, who is reported to have smoked as many as 100 cigarettes a day, died in 2006 at age 72 after a battle with lung cancer. His books and a network of clinics have promoted the one-day approach to quitting smoking and, more recently, vaping.
Killen wrote that residential rehabilitation programmes specifically for vaping do not exist and that she did not want to attempt a sudden home detox in front of family. After the course she said she coped with urges by using chewing gum and lozenges and by reframing cravings as an "evil tapeworm" to be starved, language she said lodged in her mind during the seminar.
Public health officials have raised concerns about the rise in vaping, particularly among young people. Experts have warned that nicotine exposure can affect developing brains, and regulators and health advocates continue to debate appropriate restrictions and cessation support for vapers. Killen's account echoes a broader demand for effective quitting tools and programmes tailored to nicotine delivered by modern electronic devices.
Killen's report is an individual account of one person's experience with the Easyway seminar and does not represent clinical evidence of the programme's effectiveness. Health authorities recommend that people seeking to quit nicotine consult medical advice and consider evidence-based treatments and support services.