Treating heroin addiction will involve many steps to make the recovery process effective. For most people, there will be a need for a medical detox to alleviate the symptoms of heroin withdrawal before going to a drug rehab center.

DETOX: Heroin addiction can sometimes include other drugs so it is very important to make sure that you disclose all of the drugs you are currently taking and have taken in the past 6 months. This will help the detox center better diagnose and prescribe the best medications to make your detox go smoothly and as pain-free as possible. Do not try to detox on your own. Heroin withdrawal can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the length of heroin use, and the amount of heroin being abused on a daily basis.

Inpatient rehabs: Detox should be followed by an extensive stay, at a heroin inpatient treatment program. Most of the people who have fought heroin addiction have one thing in common: They recovered from their addiction at an inpatient heroin rehab center. Some people can find sobriety in an outpatient treatment program but due to the temptations and availability to go find heroin, this type of program is less effective in treating the addiction as a whole.  The typical stay for someone recovering from heroin addiction can vary from center to center and usually consists of 30-90-day programs.

Private Inpatient drug rehabs offer the best results for long-lasting sobriety from Heroin addiction. The best treatment facilities for heroin will offer different types of treatment models and detox options for the person who is suffering from the adverse effects of heroin.

Court-ordered treatment: There are many Drug Rehab Facilities that accept criminal justice clients and people with open court cases as an alternative to jail. County and state courts will often suggest treatment in place of jail time for some first-time offender cases.

State-funded heroin treatment programs: New Mexico has set aside some resources for the treatment of heroin addiction. Please call our specialists to find out if you qualify for these state-funded rehab programs that are offered in New Mexico.

There have been many recent reports that heroin has become less expensive than it has been in years. This price shift in New Mexico has caused heroin to become a cheaper alternative for people who have developed an addiction to opioids in the form of pharmaceuticals. Due to the short supply of pharmaceutical drugs, heroin has become an inexpensive way to keep from going through the painful withdrawal symptoms from prescription medications.

Prescription pain pills can often be overprescribed to patients who realize that they have become dependent on the drug. With recent crackdowns in New Mexico on opioid abuse, there has been a huge resurgence of heroin-addicted people in New Mexico. Adding to the problem is the fact that heroin is often times cut with Fentanyl (used for pain relief for end-stage cancer patients) and the potency can vary, leading to elevated heroin overdose deaths in New Mexico.

As the heroin epidemic encroaches into the rural areas of New Mexico and continues to erode the lives of thousands of people in the state, more people are becoming addicted to heroin and overdosing, and the death rate is soaring. Heroin trafficking through the state is really taking a toll on the residents and communities in all regions of New Mexico. This steady spike in overdoses and heroin-related incidents has the state looking to a controversial approach to addressing the Heroin addiction problem. In 2007, New Mexico passed the first law of its kind in the country, protecting and offering amnesty to those drug users who call 911 or take a friend or family member who is overdosing to the emergency room. This protects them from prosecution while trying to save someone’s life. The state started giving out Naltrexone nasal spray (which is not FDA-approved in this form), and it is not available in most states.

New Mexico has the lowest rate for state-funded admissions in all of the Midwest states and has fallen to 44 in the country for state-funded treatment beds. In 2021, 3,303 New Mexicans died from drug overdoses and alcohol-related causes. Alcohol remains New Mexico’s predominant substance-use problem, and 2,274 New Mexicans died from alcohol-related causes in 2021, roughly six people each day. With New Mexico being one of the hardest-hit states in the Heroin epidemic, finding treatment for addiction can be difficult with the dwindling resources available in the state for treatment. There are federal funds that are becoming available, and more funding is being set aside for the treatment of opioid and heroin addiction. If passed, there will be 1.1 billion federal dollars available in 2016-2017 to cover treatment and education, a much-needed boost in the real war on drugs. read the full report HERE