When people choose the Detox 5 route, is this because theyve had bad experiences of trying to detox in other ways?
‘Usually when people come to us they’ve tried to go cold turkey. But because heroin and all opiates have such a physical addiction, when they just stop taking heroin the body goes into withdrawal. They’ve also usually tried substitute prescriptions of methadone and other drugs. They come to us because it’s easier to do it with us. They get one-to-one nursing, their own room with their own bathroom, and lots of medication to help with the symptoms of withdrawal.’ What sorts of people become Detox 5 patients? ‘All sorts of people come in here, but their histories tend to fall into two categories. You get people whose drug career has been quite long – 10 years or even longer – and this is their last resort. Those patients do very well, because they’re just using to stop going into withdrawal. They hate the drug and they want it out of their lives. They tend to have just used opiates. The other sort of people are quite young and have done everything – they might have started off with solve
