Benzodiazepine Detox in Los Angeles
Benzodiazepine withdrawal is one that must be managed carefully. In people who have developed physical dependence, abruptly stopping or reducing the dose too quickly can cause severe and potentially life-threatening withdrawal, including seizures. Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan and Valium are prescribed for anxiety, panic and sleep, and they work, which is part of the problem. After months or years the brain comes to depend on them, and stopping suddenly can cause seizures. Anyone who has been told to “just stop taking them” has been given dangerous advice.
Revive Detox provides physician-supervised benzodiazepine detox in a six-bed residence at 101 N. La Peer Dr. in Beverly Grove, between Beverly Hills and West Hollywood. Care is supervised by our Medical Director, with a nurse practitioner, licensed nurses and clinical staff involved throughout each stay, alongside trained recovery support staff.
In network with Aetna, Optum, UnitedHealthcare, UBH and Health Net. Most PPO plans accepted. We verify your benefits before you commit to anything.
Why Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Is Never Done Abruptly
Benzodiazepines calm the nervous system by strengthening the brain’s main braking signal, a chemical called GABA. Used daily over time, the brain adjusts by turning that signal down and its excitatory signals up, so that things feel normal only with the drug on board. Remove it suddenly and the brakes are gone while the accelerator is still pressed. That sudden shift in nervous-system activity is why benzodiazepine withdrawal can become medically dangerous and can include seizures.
The answer is a taper: reducing the dose gradually, on a schedule set by the medical team and adjusted to how you respond, so the brain has time to readjust at each step. In many cases the medical team switches a short-acting benzodiazepine such as Xanax to a longer-acting one, which smooths out the peaks and troughs between doses and makes the reduction steadier. How long the taper takes depends on the drug, the dose, how long you have taken it and how your body responds. It is set by assessment, not by a calendar.
Benzodiazepine tapering may take longer than many other withdrawal-management processes, particularly after long-term or high-dose use. That is not a sign anything is wrong. It is the treatment working as intended.
Benzodiazepine Withdrawal Symptoms
Timing depends on the drug. Short-acting benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Ativan can produce withdrawal within a day of the last dose. Longer-acting ones such as Klonopin and Valium may take several days to show.
- Rebound anxiety and panic, often worse than before the medication
- Insomnia and vivid dreams
- Restlessness, irritability and agitation
- Tremor, sweating and rapid heartbeat
- Muscle tension, aches and twitching
- Sensitivity to light, sound and touch
- Nausea and loss of appetite
- Difficulty concentrating, feeling detached from your surroundings
- Seizures, when stopped suddenly or reduced too fast
A seizure, severe confusion or hallucinations are emergency symptoms. Call 911.
How Benzodiazepine Detox Works at Revive
- Assessment on arrival. Which benzodiazepine you take, the dose, how long you have been on it, whether it was prescribed, when your last dose was, and whether alcohol, opioids or anything else is also in the picture. Your medical history, the reason the medication was started, and how you are feeling now. Vital signs give the medical team a baseline. Please bring your prescription bottles. The label tells us a lot.
- A taper set by the medical team. The dose is reduced in steps, with each step reviewed before the next. If symptoms flare, the taper slows. Comfort medications for sleep, nausea and muscle tension are used when they help. Nothing about the schedule is fixed in advance, because bodies are not.
- Monitoring around the clock. Symptoms and vital signs are checked regularly, day and night, by staff who know what a withdrawal that is moving too fast looks like. With six beds, a change in one person is noticed the same hour.
- A calm house. Benzodiazepine withdrawal makes the world feel loud. Revive is a quiet residence on a residential street, with a garden and a living room, where our meditation, music, PEMF and red light sessions are there when you want them, not on a schedule you have to keep.
- What comes next. The anxiety, panic or insomnia the medication was treating is usually still there when the drug is gone. That is expected, and it is addressed rather than ignored, through our dual diagnosis approach and the plan we make with you for after detox, whether that is residential treatment here in the same house or care closer to home.
Questions about admission or coverage? Call (844) 467-3848. Someone answers around the clock, and the call is confidential.
Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan and Valium
The four most common benzodiazepines behave differently in withdrawal:
- Xanax (alprazolam) is relatively short-acting and potent, which can make direct tapering particularly challenging for some patients. Withdrawal between doses is common even in people taking it exactly as prescribed. See our Xanax addiction and withdrawal page.
- Ativan (lorazepam) has a shorter duration of action than longer-acting benzodiazepines such as diazepam. It is often prescribed for acute anxiety or sleep and produces withdrawal quickly once a dose is missed. See Ativan addiction, side effects and withdrawal.
- Klonopin (clonazepam) is longer-acting, so withdrawal starts later and lasts longer. Because it lingers, people sometimes believe they are not dependent until they try to stop. See Klonopin addiction and side effects.
- Valium (diazepam) is the longest-acting of the four and is often the drug a taper is switched to. See Valium dosage and side effects.
For a fuller explanation of how benzodiazepines work and why withdrawal is serious, see our benzodiazepine withdrawal guide.
Benzodiazepines With Alcohol or Opioids
Many people who need benzodiazepine detox are also drinking, or also taking opioids. The combinations matter. Benzodiazepines and alcohol both affect inhibitory signaling in the central nervous system, and withdrawal from either can be medically serious. When dependence on both is present, withdrawal requires careful medical assessment and monitoring. Benzodiazepines with opioids, including fentanyl, are found together in many overdose deaths, because both suppress breathing. A supervised setting that can manage more than one withdrawal at the same time, in the right order, is exactly what these situations call for. Tell us everything at assessment. Nothing you say changes whether we will help you.
Who Benzodiazepine Detox Is For
Some people arrive after years on a prescription that a doctor started for good reasons and never ended. Some have been buying pills, increasingly counterfeits pressed with fentanyl and sold as Xanax. Some have tried to stop on their own and learned the hard way what rebound anxiety feels like. None of these are failures of character. Physical dependence on benzodiazepines is a predictable result of taking them for long enough, and it is treated as a medical condition here.
If you have a prescription and want to come off it, you do not need to have misused anything to be admitted. If the drug was never prescribed to you, the same care applies. Either way, the medication was usually treating something real, and our dual diagnosis approach means the anxiety, panic, trauma or insomnia underneath is treated alongside the withdrawal, not after it.
What Revive Is
- Joint Commission accredited
- Licensed by the California Department of Health Care Services, license #190836AP
- Established 2014
- Six beds, physician-supervised, trauma-informed
- 101 N. La Peer Dr., Beverly Grove, Los Angeles
We offer an individualized, medically supervised taper, a medical team that knows you by name, and a clear plan for what comes next.