Addiction Resources

How to use this library

Almost everyone arrives at a page like this with one of three questions. The library is organized around them.

• “What is this drug doing to me or to someone I love?” Start with the substance guides below. Each one covers pharmacology, warning signs, the withdrawal timeline, medical risks, and which level of care the situation calls for.
• “Is this actually addiction, and what happens in treatment?” Start with the Addiction Help section.
• “How do I get someone into care, and what will it cost?” Start with the Orange County treatment guide, or call us directly.

What are the levels of addiction treatment, and which does Premier provide?

Premier Health Group provides every level below. This matters more than it sounds: the most common failure in addiction treatment is a person being placed at whatever level a facility happens to sell, rather than the level a clinical assessment indicates. When one organization operates the whole continuum, stepping up or down is a clinical decision rather than a referral out.

Level of care	What it involves	Premier facility
Medically supervised detox	24-hour medical monitoring through acute withdrawal, typically 3–10 days. Required for alcohol, benzodiazepine and barbiturate dependence.	Brier Lane
Residential treatment (RTC)	Live-in care with 24/7 clinical support, usually 30–90 days. For severe disorders, unsafe home environments, or repeated outpatient attempts.	Brier Lane, 5th Street
Partial hospitalization (PHP)	Full clinical days, roughly five days a week, sleeping at home or in supportive housing.	Calle Azteca, Mountain View
Intensive outpatient (IOP)	Roughly 9–20 hours weekly, often evenings, so work and family life continue.	Calle Azteca, Mountain View
Outpatient and continuing care	Weekly therapy and medication management. Where recovery is actually maintained long term.	4th Street

One point that is easy to miss: detox is not treatment. Completing withdrawal without follow-on care has poor outcomes, and with opioids it measurably raises overdose risk because tolerance falls while nothing else has changed. Detox is the first week of a plan, not the plan.

Substance guides

Each guide answers the same questions in the same order: what the drug does, how to recognize a developing problem, what withdrawal looks like and whether it is dangerous, what the long-term medical consequences are, and which treatments have evidence behind them.

• Alcohol — one of the few substances whose withdrawal can kill; medical detox is often mandatory
• Opioids — prescription pain medication, and why medication-based treatment halves mortality
• Fentanyl — the potency problem, contaminated supply, and multi-dose naloxone
• Heroin — injection-related risks and why most street heroin now contains fentanyl
• Benzodiazepines — Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin — why tapering takes months, not days
• Barbiturates — a narrow margin between sedation and respiratory arrest
• Ambien and sleep medications — complex sleep behaviors, rebound insomnia, and CBT-I
• Adderall and prescription stimulants — distinguishing real ADHD from stimulant misuse
• Cocaine — cardiac risk in young adults, and cocaethylene when mixed with alcohol
• Methamphetamine — psychosis, cardiomyopathy, and the treatments that do work
• Marijuana — cannabis use disorder in the high-potency era, and hyperemesis syndrome
• Inhalants — sudden sniffing death, and why nitrous oxide is not harmless
• Prescription drugs — the three classes, and dependence versus addiction

Understanding addiction and treatment

• What is addiction? — the neuroscience, the diagnostic criteria, and what recovery rates actually look like
• Dual diagnosis and co-occurring disorders — why treating one condition and ignoring the other fails
• Supporting a loved one through addiction — what the research says works, and what backfires
• Orange County rehab guide — how to vet a program, spot patient brokering, and pay for care

Veteran resources

Premier Health Group runs a dedicated Veteran Program. These guides cover the risk factors specific to military service and how to use VA benefits to access care in the community.

• Alcohol use disorder in veterans — combat exposure, PTSD, moral injury and chronic pain
• The VA MISSION Act — the six eligibility pathways and the access standards
• VA Community Care — getting a referral, authorization and billing without surprises
• Caregiver support — VA caregiver programs, boundaries, and care for the caregiver

Where does Premier Health Group provide care?

Premier Health Group is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, and serves Orange County and the wider Southern California region — including Irvine, Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Laguna Beach, Mission Viejo and the surrounding communities. Our affiliated brands extend that reach: Beachside Behavioral Health, Affinity Recovery and Axis Mental Health.

Begin with Admissions or call (888) 224-0269. An assessment is free and carries no obligation.

Sources

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — nida.nih.gov
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Overdose Prevention — cdc.gov/overdose-prevention
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) — samhsa.gov
• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) — niaaa.nih.gov
• American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) criteria for levels of care — asam.org