Heroin Addiction Treatment

Inpatient heroin addiction treatment means living at one of our clinics – in Ireland at Smarmore Castle, or in Scotland as Castle Craig – for the length of your programme:

• Usually for 28, 60 or 90 days
• Away from triggers
• Clinical and therapeutic staff on hand
• Days that follow a structured routine of therapy, group work and rest

It’s often the right setting when staying at home makes recovery very difficult, or when physical or mental health needs close monitoring. 

The evidence for residential treatment of heroin addiction is consistent. One UK study following 408 people through residential opioid treatment programmes found that half were still abstinent from heroin one year later. Separate research found that the rate of non-fatal heroin overdoses dropped from 22% to 7% in the year after residential rehab.

Outpatient heroin addiction treatment means attending sessions at one of our clinics, or online, while continuing to live at home and work as normal. Sessions are scheduled around your life, with therapy, medical reviews and group support built in.

Outpatient is the right setting for many people. It can suit you well if you have stable housing, support around you, and work or caring responsibilities that make a residential stay difficult. 

The choice between rehab for heroin addiction in a residential setting and outpatient care depends on your situation.

Heroin detox is the first stage of drug treatment for heroin addiction, and one of the most physically demanding parts. Withdrawal can be severe enough that it needs medical management, not endurance. Detox happens under close clinical supervision. 

At our clinics, it’s overseen by qualified medical specialists with opioid substitution medication is available when it’s clinically appropriate – usually methadone or buprenorphine. What you’re prescribed, if anything, is a clinical decision based on your medical history and current use.

Therapy is the part of treatment that helps you understand why heroin took hold and how to live without it. The therapies most often used in heroin addiction treatment at Castle Health are:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), focused on the thoughts and patterns that drive heroin use – it is effective both on its own and as part of a wider treatment plan
• Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), often helpful for people whose heroin use is bound up with difficult emotions
• 12 Step programmes, peer-based and focused on long-term recovery community
• Trauma-informed therapy, when past experiences sit underneath the addiction
• Group and family therapy, for connection and for repairing relationships

Our inpatient programmes also include a variety of additional, complementary therapies. These include art therapy, animal-assisted therapy and meditation, alongside the main treatment work.

Before any treatment begins, you’ll have a complementary assessment with our admissions team. It’s a confidential conversation, usually around an hour, where you’ll speak to someone trained in addiction treatment. 

They’ll ask about your heroin use, your physical and mental health, what your day-to-day life looks like, and what you’ve tried before. From that, we’ll talk through which type of treatment is most likely to suit you. We can also tell you how soon a place could be available and what the cost would be.

No two of our treatment plans look the same. After your assessment, we build a plan around what you actually want and need. That covers the right setting, the right balance of therapies, the medical support detox will require, and what your aftercare should look like from the start. 

You’re involved in shaping it, and we review and adjust it as treatment progresses, because what works in week one rarely looks the same in week eight.

Every Castle Health programme includes a structured aftercare plan lasting up to two years. The first months focus on regular therapy and continued connection with a recovery community. Over time, support steps down to less frequent check-ins, with family involvement built in where helpful.

The length reflects the evidence. Research has found that 71% of people in residential rehab were still abstinent at 24 months when an appropriate aftercare was in place, and failure to enter aftercare predicted earlier relapse.

Separate studies noted that people who avoided a full relapse consistently and regularly used the various strategies they had learned in treatment, during the aftercare period. Those strategies needed regular reinforcement to keep working.

Heroin addiction rarely affects only one person, and treatment at Castle Health reflects that. Family and couples therapy is part of our programmes. It’s available during both inpatient and outpatient treatment, and through aftercare. 

Sessions are led by a therapist with specific training in working with families affected by addiction. The focus is on rebuilding communication and trust.

There’s no perfect way to start a conversation about heroin addiction with someone in your life, but it is important to choose a moment when neither of you is under acute pressure, and leading with what you’ve noticed. 

You don’t need to have a treatment plan ready before you raise it. Often a first conversation just opens the door, and a few more follow before someone is ready to take a next step.

Sometimes a structured intervention is the right way to bring up treatment. It can help particularly when someone has refused to engage with the conversation before. Our team can help you understand what that looks like in practice. 

We can talk through whether a professional interventionist is needed, and what happens if the person agrees to come in on the day.

It depends on the setting and the programme. Residential programmes typically run for 28, 60 or 90 days. Outpatient treatment doesn’t have a fixed end date and is shaped around what you need at any point. 

Aftercare runs for an average of two years worth of structured work across all Castle Health programmes. There’s no single ‘right’ length, and it depends on how heroin use has shaped your life and what support is around you.

Often, yes. Medication is commonly prescribed during heroin detox to manage withdrawal safely. Opioid substitution medication such as methadone or buprenorphine may be used when the treating clinician judges it appropriate. 

What you’re prescribed, if anything, is a clinical decision based on your medical history and current use. Our clinical approach to medication during heroin addiction treatment follows established guidance from bodies such as NICE in the UK and the HSE in Ireland.

Most often, yes. Most major European private insurers cover heroin addiction rehab, though the level of cover depends on your policy. We work with large European insurers, and self-funded options for private heroin addiction treatment are available where insurance doesn’t apply. The clearest answer comes from a phone call, and our admissions team can check what your policy covers in a single conversation.

Yes. Outpatient treatment is designed to fit around work, parenting, caring or other responsibilities. For people who need inpatient treatment but have dependents, we can help plan visits and family contact through the programme, and a step-down to outpatient afterwards. 

Aftercare is built around continuing your life. The assessment conversation is the right place to talk through what’s practical for you.

Relapse can happen, even after good treatment. One UK study published in Addiction following people through heroin treatment found that around 60% used heroin again afterwards, with the first occurrence usually soon after leaving treatment. There is one safety point worth knowing here. 

Tolerance to heroin drops sharply during any period off it, so a return to use after treatment carries a higher overdose risk than the same use did before. The dose you were on previously may no longer be safe. If a relapse happens during your two-year aftercare, our response is clinical and practical: rapid contact with your aftercare team and an honest look at what triggered the slip, so your plan can be adjusted around what’s actually happened.