Outpatient addiction treatment, 50 minutes from Hollywood.

RECO is about 35 miles and 50 minutes up I-95 from Hollywood — close enough for family to stay involved, far enough that the people and places tied to active use stay north in Broward. Clients from Hollywood Beach, Emerald Hills, and Hollywood Lakes typically combine PHP or IOP with one of our coordinated sober-living residences in Delray, with the same primary therapist carrying through each level of care.

From Hollywood, FL to RECO Intensive in Delray Beach is roughly 35 miles up I-95 — about 50 minutes outside of rush hour, longer when traffic stacks between Sheridan Street and Boca. The honest read for most Hollywood residents weighing outpatient care is that a daily round trip during a Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) is not a sustainable plan. What we see work for clients from Hollywood Beach, Emerald Hills, Hollywood Lakes, Hollywood Hills, and Oakwood is pairing the clinical program with one of our sober-living residences a few minutes from campus. The 35-mile gap stops being a logistical problem and becomes a clinical asset — the people, places, and triggers tied to active use stay north on I-95 while the treatment work happens in Delray.

This page walks through what outpatient addiction treatment actually is, who it fits, what the day looks like, and how the sober-living piece works for clients coming from Broward County. If you are at the stage of comparing programs, the questions at the bottom cover insurance, length of stay, and what to expect in the first week.

What outpatient addiction treatment actually means

“Outpatient” is a broad category, and it is worth being precise about what it covers. The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) describes a continuum that runs from standard outpatient counseling — perhaps one to three hours weekly — up through Intensive Outpatient (IOP) at roughly 9 to 15 hours per week, and Partial Hospitalization (PHP) at 30 or more hours per week. PHP is sometimes called “day treatment” because the clinical intensity matches what you would see in a residential program, minus the overnight stay.

For someone meeting diagnostic criteria for moderate or severe substance use disorder — which clinically means at least four to six symptoms from the DSM-5 list, with impairment across work, relationships, and health — standard once-a-week outpatient counseling is rarely the right starting point. The clinical density is too thin to interrupt an active pattern. PHP or IOP is usually the appropriate entry level, with the option to step up to residential care if withdrawal management or 24-hour monitoring is needed first.

Who outpatient is the right fit for

Placement is driven by the ASAM Six Dimensions: acute intoxication and withdrawal potential; biomedical conditions; emotional, behavioral, or cognitive conditions; readiness to change; relapse potential; and recovery environment. In plain language, the assessment asks: Is withdrawal medically dangerous? Are there co-occurring medical issues — hepatitis, heart problems, pregnancy? Is there a psychiatric picture that needs stabilizing? How motivated is the person, realistically? What has happened in prior recovery attempts? And does the home environment help or hurt?

Outpatient at the PHP or IOP level is appropriate when withdrawal can be managed safely without inpatient detox — or has already been completed — when there is no urgent medical need for 24-hour care, and when the living situation supports sobriety. That last dimension is where most Hollywood clients hit a snag. If the person you are worried about is using in the apartment they share with someone who is also using, or in a neighborhood where the dealer is two blocks over, the home environment will overwhelm the clinical work. That is the gap our sober-living network is built to close.

For alcohol use disorder, outpatient often pairs with medication — naltrexone or acamprosate — to reduce craving and reinforce abstinence. For opioid use disorder, buprenorphine or extended-release naltrexone (Vivitrol) is part of standard care for clients who are appropriate candidates, prescribed and monitored by our psychiatric team rather than handed off elsewhere.

What a PHP day looks like

PHP at RECO runs Monday through Friday, generally from mid-morning through mid-afternoon. The structure is not a string of disconnected appointments — it is a clinical day, meaning the groups, individual sessions, psychiatry check-ins, and experiential work fit together around the same treatment plan and the same primary therapist.

A typical week includes process group, psychoeducation on relapse science and the neurobiology of addiction, skills-based work in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), and Motivational Interviewing (MI) woven into individual sessions. For clients carrying trauma — and the majority of people in addiction treatment do — we use Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) and Trauma-Focused CBT, sequenced carefully so that trauma work begins after early stabilization rather than in week one. Experiential modalities — art, music, equine, beach-based therapy — are not filler; they are how clients practice regulation skills in a non-verbal register, which matters when verbal processing alone has not been enough.

IOP, for clients who step down or who enter at that level, condenses the clinical content into three-hour blocks three to five days a week, including evening tracks for people maintaining work or school.

Sober living as part of the treatment plan

RECO operates its own network of sober-living residences in Delray Beach, within a short drive of the clinical campus. These are not affiliated houses we refer to and lose track of — they are coordinated directly with the treatment team. House managers communicate with primary therapists, drug screens are reviewed clinically rather than just administratively, and house dynamics are part of the case conceptualization.

For clients from Hollywood, sober living solves two problems at once. The first is geographic: a 50-minute commute each way during PHP is exhausting and, more importantly, drops people back into the cues that were driving use. The second is environmental: even a supportive family home in Emerald Hills or Hollywood Lakes is, by ASAM criteria, often not the right early-recovery setting if the person was using there. Living in a structured house with peers in the same phase of recovery, with curfews and accountability built in, is a different baseline than going home each evening.

When PHP transitions to IOP and then to aftercare and alumni programming, the sober-living stay often continues for several more months. That stepped reduction — clinical hours coming down while community supports stay in place — is how the model is designed to work.

Getting started, insurance, and what to expect in week one

Most clients arriving from Hollywood are in-network through major commercial carriers, including Aetna, Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield (including FL Blue), and several others. Our admissions team runs a verification of benefits before the conversation gets to deposits or estimates, so the financial picture is clear up front rather than after intake. Single Case Agreements are sometimes negotiated for out-of-network plans where in-network options are limited.

The first week is front-loaded: a biopsychosocial assessment, psychiatric evaluation, medical screening, treatment plan drafted with the client rather than handed to them, and onboarding into a primary therapist and group cohort. If you are calling on behalf of a family member who has not yet decided to come, the admissions clinicians are trained to talk with you about how to have that conversation — including when not to force it. Call (866) 396-2008 to start that process, or use the verification form if you want benefits checked first.

Serving residents of: Hollywood Beach, Emerald Hills, Hollywood Lakes, Hollywood Hills, Oakwood.