Alcohol Addiction Treatment

Alcohol is legal, social, and everywhere, which is exactly why alcohol use disorder is so easy to carry for years without naming it. It is also the substance whose withdrawal is most likely to be medically dangerous, and that fact should shape how anyone stops.

Golden Coast Rehab treats alcohol use disorder in adults across San Diego County on an outpatient basis. Treatment starts with an assessment rather than a schedule, because how you stop drinking depends on how much, how long, and what your body has already been through.

How alcohol use disorder is treated here

Golden Coast Rehab holds California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) substance use disorder certification 370254AP for outpatient detoxification, outpatient, intensive outpatient, and medication-assisted treatment. We do not provide residential or inpatient treatment, and there is no substance use partial hospitalization program here — partial hospitalization at Golden Coast Rehab is a specialty mental health service under our County of San Diego contract.

Outpatient detox

Alcohol withdrawal can produce tremor, sweating, agitation, high blood pressure, seizures, and in severe cases delirium tremens, which can be fatal. That is why stopping abruptly on your own after heavy, sustained drinking is genuinely dangerous. Outpatient withdrawal management is appropriate for many people and not for everyone; the assessment determines which, and if you need a hospital or residential setting we will tell you and help arrange it.

Medication-assisted treatment

Medication for alcohol use disorder can reduce craving or reduce the reward from drinking, and it is underused. Where it fits your clinical picture, it is prescribed alongside therapy rather than on its own.

Intensive outpatient program

The core of treatment: several sessions a week of group and individual therapy while you live at home and, in most cases, keep working. This is where the actual work on triggers, craving, and the life around the using happens.

Outpatient program

A lighter weekly schedule that follows intensive outpatient and keeps the clinical relationship intact through the first year, when relapse risk is highest.

When a mental health condition is also present

Depression, anxiety, trauma, and bipolar disorder frequently sit alongside a substance use disorder, and treating only one of them is the most reliable way to end up back where you started. Both are treated here by one clinical team — see dual diagnosis, or the same care framed from the mental health side on co-occurring disorders.

Coverage and cost

Substance use treatment for Medi-Cal beneficiaries in San Diego County runs through the Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System, administered by San Diego County Behavioral Health Services rather than by your managed care plan. If you have Medi-Cal in the county — any of the four plans — and you meet criteria, care here can be covered at no cost to you. See how Medi-Cal works here.

Call (858) 925-8589, answered 24 hours a day. In a crisis, the San Diego County Access and Crisis Line is available around the clock at 1-888-724-7240.