Heroin Addiction Treatment

Heroin use disorder is treated with the same approach as other opioid use disorders: medication to stabilize withdrawal and craving, therapy to address what sits underneath, and time. It is a serious condition and it responds to treatment.

Golden Coast Rehab treats heroin use disorder in adults across San Diego County on an outpatient basis.

One practical reality shapes everything: the heroin supply in California is widely contaminated with fentanyl, so overdose risk is no longer predictable from experience or tolerance.

How heroin 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

Heroin withdrawal peaks within a few days and is intensely uncomfortable rather than typically dangerous — pain, cramping, vomiting, insomnia, and severe restlessness. Medical support makes it survivable in practice, which matters because most unsupported attempts end in relapse, and relapse after abstinence is when overdose risk is at its highest.

Medication-assisted treatment

Medication is the treatment with the strongest evidence for heroin use disorder, including for reducing overdose death. It is delivered here alongside individual and group therapy.

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.