Auricular acupuncture is an accessible, non-confrontational therapy that appears to be effective when used in drug and alcohol treatment facilities, hospitals and prisons in the UK, Europe and the USA. Despite being popular, research evidence on its effectiveness is lacking, and as a result services are underfunded and risk being withdrawn. There are methodological problems in researching auricular acupuncture. In these days of evidence-based medicine, most studies in this area are explanatory randomised controlled trials, which is limited in capturing the complete benefits of the intervention. Furthermore, there is lack of consensus over definitions of the concept of ‘addiction’ and whether or not this should be perceived as a ‘disease’ that can be ‘cured’ by an intervention such as auricular acupuncture. Basic concepts such as these need to inform development of outcome measures, which should include retention of clients in treatment as an indicator of success.It is argued here that the best approach will integrate research on physical effects with research on subjective experience of those with drug and alcohol problems. The challenge is to design large scale, high quality, pragmatic randomised controlled trials to assess the effectiveness of auricular acupuncture over the longer term in settings that mimic the delivery of treatment in practice and are informed by acupuncture's own diagnostic traditions, using a combination of objective, quantitative methods and subjective, qualitative methods.