Urban Recovery runs a medically supervised opioid detox program in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We treat adults who are physically dependent on heroin, fentanyl, or prescription painkillers. You stay in an inpatient bed with nursing coverage around the clock. We treat symptoms with medication as they arise. Two OASAS licenses cover this program, and the facility is CARF accredited. Same-day admissions are available, and more than 10,000 lives have been transformed here.
If you have tried to stop alone and could not, that is a common experience with opioid dependence. It is not a personal failing. Opioid withdrawal is rarely fatal in the way alcohol withdrawal can be, but it can be punishing. The symptoms of opioid withdrawal can peak just as resolve begins to weaken, and one dose can end the suffering within minutes. That is why unsupervised attempts to stop opioid use so often fail.
Two forces can drive people back - untreated physical pain and untreated drug cravings. A professional medical detox addresses both. Our medical team uses prescription medications to reduce them, so recovery is no longer simply a test of endurance.
How soon opioid withdrawal starts depends on which opioid you used. Short-acting opioids include heroin and oxycodone. Their opioid withdrawal symptoms usually begin 8 to 24 hours after the last dose. The acute phase then runs 4 to 10 days. Long-acting opioids like methadone start later, 12 to 48 hours after the last dose. Their acute phase can run 10 to 20 days. These ranges come from published clinical guidance on withdrawal management, not from any single program. Your own timeline may be shorter or longer.
The physical symptoms nursing staff watch for include:
Muscle aches, sweating, and chills
Runny nose, yawning, and dilated pupils
Abdominal cramping, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea
The psychological symptoms tend to be what people remember. They include severe anxiety, insomnia, restlessness, and drug cravings intense enough to override everything else.
Severe withdrawal symptoms carry their own medical risk. Sustained vomiting and diarrhea cause dehydration and electrolyte loss, and a rapid heart rate can follow. These are the common withdrawal symptoms that turn dangerous without monitoring. That is why this program is inpatient rather than outpatient.
Opioids bind to opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and gut. There, they block pain signals to produce pain relief and trigger dopamine release. With steady use, the brain dials down its natural response. The same dose then stops working, which is tolerance.
Physical dependence comes next. The body now needs opioids present simply to function normally. If you stop abruptly, the nervous system rebounds. That rebound is opiate withdrawal, and it is a predictable biological change rather than a character flaw.
Opioid receptors also govern breathing. At high doses, opioids suppress the brainstem drive to breathe and cause respiratory depression. That is how opioid overdose kills. Tolerance also falls fast during detox, so a dose that was once routine can become fatal.
Fentanyl remains the substance most often involved in overdose deaths in New York City. It was present in 73 percent of those deaths in 2024, and opioids in 78 percent. Both figures come from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Brooklyn residents accounted for 473 of the city's 2,192 overdose deaths that year. Fentanyl and similar synthetic opioids store in body tissue. Withdrawal timing is therefore less predictable than with heroin alone.
Xylazine has complicated detox further. The same department recorded it in 27 percent of overdose deaths involving opioids in 2024. That is down from 31 percent in 2023, but it remains common in the local supply. Xylazine is a sedative, not an opioid, so buprenorphine does not relieve it. Anyone detoxing from a contaminated supply may have symptoms that opioid medication alone will not cover. That is a specific reason to detox under medical oversight rather than at home.
Admission starts with an intake coordinator and paperwork. A nurse then takes your vitals and reviews your medical history and current medications. A urine screen identifies the opioids present in your system, along with anything else. That result shapes your medication orders through the detox process. Every patient receives a psychiatric evaluation within the first 24 hours, so staff can catch co-occurring conditions early.
From there, your treatment plan is built around your actual use history. Monitoring is continuous, and staff adjust medication as symptoms shift. The clinical goal of this stage is physical stabilization. Your body leaves acute withdrawal, and you can engage with what comes next.
Life on the unit is structured. You receive:
Three meals a day and laundry service
A personal iPad loaded with recovery resources
Use of our recreation room
Up to four daily air walks on our roof deck, overlooking New York Bay and the Statue of Liberty
The facility is electronics-free, so we store phones and laptops securely until discharge.
Some traditional detox methods offer supportive care and let withdrawal run its course. Our medical detox treats symptoms with medication instead. Urban Recovery offers medication-assisted treatment, and the medications available here include buprenorphine, Suboxone, Sublocade, and Vivitrol. Suboxone combines buprenorphine with naloxone.
Buprenorphine binds to the same opioid receptors as heroin or oxycodone, but activates them only partially. That eases withdrawal and reduces cravings without producing the same high. It also binds more tightly than the opioid it replaces. So if it is started too early, it can strip that opioid off the receptor and trigger precipitated withdrawal. Clinical guidance therefore calls for starting it only once withdrawal is measurably underway.
Vivitrol works the opposite way and blocks opioid effects rather than replacing them. It suits patients who have already completed withdrawal and want a relapse barrier. It displaces opioids too, so it can only be started once the system is clear.
Opioid use disorder is a diagnosable medical condition, not a label. If you are reading this for someone else, these are the signs of opioid abuse:
Needing larger amounts for the same effect steadily
Running out of a prescription early
Withdrawing from people and activities that used to matter
Letting self-care and personal hygiene slide
Continuing to use despite clear damage to work, money, or relationships
Many people arrive at opioid use through a prescription. About 80 percent of heroin users first misused prescription painkillers, according to NIDA. Only a small minority of prescription users make that move, though, at 4 to 6 percent. Those who do often turn to illicit substances because street supply is cheaper. Opiate addiction may begin with pain management or with recreational drug abuse. Either way, the dependence that follows responds to the same treatment.
Opioid addiction rarely arrives alone. Anxiety, depression, and unresolved trauma either precede the substance use or grow out of it. Treating one while ignoring the other often fails. That is why the psychiatric evaluation happens on day one, and why mental health care runs through the whole stay.
Our clinicians treat behavioral health conditions and substance use disorder together. That includes patients whose history involves drug and alcohol abuse rather than opioids alone. The program includes group therapy and individual counseling. It also uses models such as Seeking Safety for concurrent PTSD and substance abuse. Behavioral healthcare centers call this dual diagnosis care. It matters because untreated mental health disorders are among the most reliable predictors of relapse.
Opioid detoxification is the first stage of the treatment process, not the whole of it. Relapse rates are high when people stop at detox and go no further. Tolerance falls during withdrawal while cravings persist. Returning to a former dose in that state is a well-documented cause of fatal opioid overdose.
Urban Recovery holds two separate OASAS licenses. One covers medically supervised withdrawal and the other covers inpatient rehabilitation. Opioid addiction treatment therefore continues in the same building, with no transfer to another treatment facility. We are primarily a 21- to 28-day program. Our Short-Term Residential Program provides 35 hours of counseling each week. That includes group sessions seven days a week and one hour of individual counseling. Discharge planning starts on day one, and you leave with a customized discharge plan. Detox alone rarely produces lasting recovery. Your long-term recovery plan therefore starts during detox, not after it.
Opioid detox is one of four detox programs Urban Recovery provides in Brooklyn. The others are drug detoxification, alcohol detoxification, and benzodiazepine detox, all offered at our drug rehab in Brooklyn, NY.
Our facility sits at 411 Van Brunt Street in the Red Hook waterfront section of Brooklyn, in Kings County. We admit adults for opioid detoxification from across the borough. The closest neighborhoods are Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, and the Columbia Street Waterfront District. We also serve Gowanus, Boerum Hill, Park Slope, and Downtown Brooklyn.
We accept some commercial plans and most Medicaid plans. A full-time staff member handles insurance authorization, so coverage questions do not delay admission. Call (646) 347-1892 and we will check your coverage before you travel.
Acute withdrawal usually runs 4 to 10 days, and longer for methadone. Your own opioid detox process depends on your use history and the opioid involved. Detox is only the first phase. Our program as a whole runs 21 to 28 days
You will not be comfortable, but medical opioid detox is a long way from unmedicated withdrawal. Our clinicians manage withdrawal symptoms with medication. The intent is to keep symptoms tolerable rather than to have you endure them.
Some people do opioid detox as outpatients with a prescriber, which is a legitimate route. Inpatient care is safer when dependence is severe, or earlier attempts have not held. It monitors dehydration and cardiac strain, which an unsupervised attempt cannot.
Often, yes. Same-day admissions are available, and the intake line is staffed 24 hours a day. Call, and a treatment advisor will walk you through the assessment.
Yes. Urban Recovery complies with HIPAA and all applicable privacy laws. Our confidentiality notice explains how we handle your records.
If you are counting hours until withdrawal starts, that is the moment to call. Urban Recovery is OASAS-licensed and CARF-accredited. Among addiction treatment centers in Brooklyn, we offer inpatient opioid detox with same-day admission.
Call our intake line at (646) 347-1892 to speak with a treatment advisor about your treatment options. You can also email admissions@urbanrecovery.com.
This page is for general information and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. If you or someone near you may be experiencing an opioid overdose, call 911 immediately.
