Benzo Detox in Texas: Where to Get It, What Happens, and How Long It Takes

People searching for a benzo rehab in Texas are usually not looking for a definition. They are on Xanax, Klonopin, Valium or Ativan, they know they cannot simply stop, and they want to know where to go and what will happen when they get there. This page answers that in order: where, what, how long, and what it costs.

You cannot just stop taking benzos because an abrupt stop, or a dose cut that is too fast, can cause withdrawal seizures that the FDA’s boxed warning calls potentially life-threatening.

That warning was added to the entire benzodiazepine class in September 2020, and it is worth reading what it actually says. Physical dependence can develop after days or weeks of use at prescribed doses. Stopping abruptly or reducing too quickly can produce withdrawal reactions, including seizures, which can be life-threatening. The FDA’s instruction to prescribers is a gradual taper with a patient-specific plan, because no single tapering schedule suits everyone.

This is what separates benzodiazepines from most other drugs people detox from. Opioid withdrawal is miserable and rarely dangerous. Benzodiazepine withdrawal, like alcohol withdrawal, can kill, and it does so through the same mechanism: a nervous system that has spent months being sedated, suddenly running with nothing holding it down.

Source: FDA requiring Boxed Warning updated to improve safe use of benzodiazepine drug class, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, September 2020.

Most detox stays at Briarwood run five to seven days, but benzodiazepine tapers are the ones most likely to run longer, and the honest answer depends on which drug and for how long.

The timeline is set by the drug’s half-life. With a short-acting benzodiazepine such as Xanax or Ativan, withdrawal symptoms can begin 6 to 8 hours after the last dose and usually fade within 10 to 14 days. With a long-acting one such as Valium or Klonopin, symptoms may not appear for 1 to 4 days, tend to peak at 10 to 14 days, and can last up to four weeks. Insomnia and anxiety are the symptoms people find hardest, and they peak early.

Two things follow from that. A person on a long-acting benzodiazepine can feel fine on day two of detox and be at their worst on day ten, which is why the length of stay is decided after the medical assessment rather than quoted on the phone. And the FDA notes that some people experience withdrawal symptoms lasting many months after the acute phase, which is not a reason to stop tapering but a reason to have treatment arranged for afterward.

Benzo detox at Briarwood costs $900 a day as inpatient care in Austin and Houston, or $4,500 to $6,300 for a typical five to seven day stay. A taper that runs longer costs the same daily rate for the extra days.

With insurance, most people pay between $0 and $5,000 out of pocket depending on their plan, and the benefit check takes a couple of minutes on the phone. Medications and labs are billed separately from the daily rate. The complete price list, the exclusions, and the outpatient figures are on how much detox costs. Briarwood does not bill Medicaid or Medicare; TRICARE and VA benefits are accepted.

The taper ends, the anxiety the benzodiazepine was prescribed for usually has not, and the step after detox is where that gets treated rather than medicated away.

For most people that means intensive outpatient treatment, several sessions a week while living at home, where the underlying anxiety or insomnia is worked on with a clinician and, where appropriate, non-benzodiazepine medication. Briarwood arranges that step before discharge, because the weeks after a benzo taper are when the pull back toward the prescription is strongest and the protracted symptoms the FDA describes are most likely to be mistaken for the original condition returning.

If you are reading this because you are on a benzodiazepine and want off it, the one thing not to do is stop today. Call, describe the drug, the dose and how long, and a nurse will tell you whether this is a detox admission, an outpatient taper, or a conversation with your prescriber.