Heroin recovery is one of the hardest things a person ever does. It’s also one of the most done.
People recover from heroin addiction every day. The reason it doesn’t feel like that is because we hear about the overdoses — the people who didn’t make it — and rarely about the millions of Americans who quietly built sober lives, often after several attempts. Our alumni community alone has hundreds of people in active recovery from heroin and other opioids.
The first step is the hardest, and usually it’s not the using — it’s making the call.
What’s actually in the heroin
For the past several years, most street heroin sold in Colorado has been contaminated with fentanyl, and increasingly, much of what’s sold as “heroin” contains no actual heroin at all — just fentanyl and adulterants. This is a meaningful clinical change.
Fentanyl is much more potent and shorter-acting than heroin. Withdrawal can be more intense and harder to manage. Buprenorphine induction has to be timed differently to avoid precipitated withdrawal. And the overdose risk is significantly higher. Our protocols assume fentanyl is present unless proven otherwise.
Detox: medical, not heroic
Heroin and fentanyl withdrawal is rarely medically dangerous in the way alcohol withdrawal can be — but it is deeply, deeply unpleasant. Body aches, restlessness, GI symptoms, sleep disruption, intense cravings. People who try to detox alone often relapse not because they aren’t motivated but because the discomfort is genuinely unmanageable without medical support.
We provide medically supervised detox on-site for most clients, using buprenorphine, comfort medications, and 24/7 nursing to make the process bearable. Detox typically takes 5 to 10 days. For most people, transitioning directly from detox into residential or intensive outpatient treatment is the most stable path forward.
Medication-assisted treatment is the standard
For opioid use disorder, MAT is the evidence-based gold standard. The data is overwhelming: MAT cuts overdose mortality roughly in half and dramatically improves treatment retention compared to abstinence-only approaches.
We offer all three FDA-approved MAT pathways:
- Buprenorphine (Suboxone, Sublocade) — most clients start here
- Methadone — coordinated through licensed clinics in the metro for clients who need it
- Naltrexone (Vivitrol) — for clients post-detox who want a non-opioid medication
The decision about which (and for how long) is yours to make with your prescriber. We don’t believe in time-limiting MAT for ideological reasons.
What’s underneath
For most people, heroin use isn’t just about heroin. It’s about what the heroin was doing — quieting trauma, dampening anxiety, providing connection or escape. Recovery work has to address that, or the substance just gets replaced by another way to numb.
Our trauma-informed therapy program — EMDR, cognitive processing therapy, somatic approaches — is built into every dual diagnosis and opioid treatment plan. Not as an add-on. As a core component.
What it costs
Heroin and opioid treatment is fully covered for Medicaid (Health First Colorado) members. Medicare and most commercial insurance plans cover the full continuum of care. We verify benefits at no cost — most people are surprised by how much is covered.
If you’re using right now and you’re scared to call, please call anyway. The call is free, confidential, and answered by a real human. We have heard every version of this story. None of them disqualify you from getting help.