Medical detox for Fort Lauderdale — supervised, then straight into treatment.

For Fort Lauderdale families, RECO offers something most local detox providers cannot: a single organization that manages every level of care from medical withdrawal through aftercare. The 40-minute drive up I-95 from Las Olas or Victoria Park is short enough to keep families involved in weekly therapy, but far enough to create separation from the environments tied to active use. Clients move from detox into residential or PHP without changing providers, losing clinical information, or sitting on a waitlist.

From Las Olas, Victoria Park, or Rio Vista, the RECO Intensive campus in Delray Beach sits about 26 miles up I-95 — roughly a 40-minute drive without traffic. That distance matters clinically. It is short enough that Fort Lauderdale families can stay involved in weekend programming and family therapy, and short enough that clients moving into our partial hospitalization program can commute without uprooting their lives. It is also far enough to create real separation from the bars on Las Olas Boulevard, the dealers tied to a downtown apartment, or the social circles in Wilton Manors and Coral Ridge that contributed to the cycle. For someone facing medical detox, that geographic buffer often makes the difference between a clean withdrawal and an immediate relapse after discharge.

RECO’s detox is delivered through partner facilities that provide 24/7 medical supervision during the acute withdrawal phase. From there, clients move directly into RECO’s residential or PHP programming — no gap between levels of care, no transfer paperwork sent across competing organizations, no waitlist. For a Fort Lauderdale family who has already spent months trying to coordinate care across uncoordinated providers, that single-organization continuity is usually the first thing they notice.

When medical detox is the right starting point

Detox is medically indicated when withdrawal risk is moderate to severe. In practice, that means three substance categories almost always require supervised withdrawal: alcohol, benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Klonopin, and Ativan, and opioids including heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, and hydrocodone. Alcohol withdrawal can produce seizures and delirium tremens — both potentially fatal without medical management. Benzodiazepine withdrawal carries similar seizure risk and almost always requires a slow taper rather than an abrupt stop. Opioid withdrawal is rarely life-threatening in healthy adults but is severe enough that unmedicated detox almost always ends in relapse within 72 hours.

Stimulant withdrawal — cocaine, methamphetamine, prescription amphetamines — is a different clinical picture. The acute syndrome is primarily psychological: profound fatigue, depression, anhedonia, and intense craving. Medical detox is rarely required, but supervised stabilization in a structured setting still helps, particularly when stimulant use has been combined with alcohol or benzodiazepines, which is common in Broward County presentations. Our admissions team uses ASAM criteria across all six dimensions — including withdrawal risk, biomedical conditions, and recovery environment — to determine whether detox is clinically necessary or whether direct admission to residential care is appropriate.

What 24/7 medical supervision actually looks like

Detox is a medical procedure, not a test of willpower. At the partner facility, that translates into concrete clinical activity. Vital signs — blood pressure, pulse, temperature, oxygen saturation — are checked on a schedule that intensifies during the peak withdrawal window. Symptoms are scored using validated instruments: the CIWA-Ar protocol for alcohol withdrawal and the COWS scale for opioid withdrawal. Those scores drive medication decisions in real time. Higher CIWA scores trigger additional benzodiazepine dosing to prevent seizure; higher COWS scores trigger comfort medications and, where appropriate, buprenorphine.

Medications used during detox are chosen to treat specific symptoms safely. Benzodiazepines are tapered, not stopped. Alcohol withdrawal is managed with a long-acting agent on a symptom-triggered schedule. Opioid withdrawal is managed with buprenorphine, clonidine for autonomic symptoms, anti-nausea medication, and non-narcotic sleep support. Medical staff are present around the clock and can escalate to a hospital emergency department if a complication — a cardiac arrhythmia, a febrile seizure, an unanticipated bleeding ulcer — exceeds the facility’s scope. For a Fort Lauderdale client whose last detox attempt was on a couch in Victoria Park with friends Googling symptoms, this is a fundamentally different experience.

Direct continuity into residential or PHP

The most common failure point in addiction treatment is the transition between levels of care. A client completes detox at one facility, is handed a paper discharge summary, and is told to call a different organization for the next step. Two days pass. The phone never gets dialed. By day three, they are using again.

RECO clients move from detox into residential treatment or directly into PHP within the same organization. The clinical team that will manage the next 30 to 90 days receives the detox handoff directly — the medications used, the withdrawal trajectory, the psychiatric observations, the family conversations that happened during admission. Nothing is re-litigated; nothing is lost. For Fort Lauderdale clients moving on to IOP after residential, the same continuity holds through step-down, sober living, and aftercare.

Medication-assisted induction during detox

For opioid use disorder specifically, the detox window is the right time to initiate medication-assisted treatment. Buprenorphine induction during detox stabilizes the brain’s opioid receptors, dramatically reduces post-acute craving, and protects against the early relapse that follows almost every unmedicated opioid detox. Our psychiatry team coordinates MAT initiation with the detox partner facility so that the prescription is established and dosed correctly before the client steps into residential or PHP. For clients who prefer a non-agonist approach, monthly injectable naltrexone (Vivitrol) is an option once the opioid washout window is complete.

For alcohol use disorder, the parallel medications are naltrexone — oral or monthly injectable — and acamprosate, both of which reduce craving and support abstinence. The decision about which medication and when to start is made collaboratively with the client and the psychiatrist, not handed down. A deeper discussion of alcohol-specific treatment and opioid-specific treatment is available on the respective program pages.

How Fort Lauderdale families typically start

Most Fort Lauderdale admissions begin with a phone call from a spouse, parent, or sibling — often after a specific incident: a DUI off Federal Highway, an overdose reversed by paramedics in Coral Ridge, a relapse following a previous treatment episode. Our admissions team conducts a clinical screen by phone, verifies insurance benefits with the major carriers active in South Florida (Aetna, Cigna, BCBS, United, Magellan, Humana), and coordinates transport from Fort Lauderdale to the detox partner facility. In most cases, a client who calls in the morning can be admitted to detox the same day.

From there, the treatment team builds a care plan grounded in evidence-based modalities — CBT for distorted thinking, DBT for emotion regulation, Motivational Interviewing for ambivalence, EMDR and Trauma-Focused CBT for the trauma history that almost always sits underneath the substance use. Family sessions are scheduled weekly. The 40-minute drive up I-95 makes that participation realistic for Las Olas, Wilton Manors, and Rio Vista families in a way that out-of-state treatment never is.

Serving residents of: Las Olas, Victoria Park, Coral Ridge, Rio Vista, Wilton Manors.