We are here to help you! Call us +855 405 2733
We are here to help you! Call us +855 405 2733
Opioids are the class of drug behind most overdose deaths in the United States. They also happen to be genuinely effective medicines for acute pain. Both things are true, and holding both is the only honest starting point for a conversation about opioid addiction.
There is real news worth knowing: after years of relentless increase, US overdose deaths have now fallen three years running. The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics estimated 69,973 overdose deaths in 2025, down almost 14% from 81,313 in 2024, with opioid-involved deaths dropping from roughly 55,300 to 44,600. Wider naloxone distribution, better access to treatment medication, and changes in the drug supply all appear to be contributing. The number is still enormous. It is also no longer inevitable.
Axis Mental Health provides outpatient substance use and mental health treatment from Desert Hot Springs, California, serving the Coachella Valley, Riverside County and the wider Southern California region. Our care includes individual and group therapy, psychiatric medication management, dual-diagnosis treatment for co-occurring mental health conditions, and telehealth appointments anywhere in California.
We are an outpatient provider. We do not operate a medical detox or residential unit. If your assessment shows you need that level of care first, we will help you find a licensed program and pick your treatment up again the moment you step down.
Call (855) 405-2733 for a free, confidential consultation, or send us a message.
Opioids all act on the same receptors, primarily the mu-opioid receptor, producing pain relief, sedation, euphoria and slowed breathing. The category includes:
This distinction matters enormously, and conflating the two has harmed a lot of pain patients.
A cancer patient on scheduled morphine is dependent and not addicted. Someone taking pills they buy from strangers, running out early every month, and lying to two different doctors is showing opioid use disorder regardless of how the prescription started.
Opioid overdose kills by suppressing the brainstem’s drive to breathe. It is usually not sudden — there is often a window of many minutes to an hour in which intervention works.
Signs: unresponsive to shouting or a sternal rub; breathing that is very slow, shallow, gurgling or stopped; pinpoint pupils; blue or grey lips, fingertips and face; limp body; choking or snoring sounds.
What to do:
If you or someone you love uses opioids, keep naloxone in the house. Keeping it is not permission; it is a fire extinguisher.
Withdrawal is intensely uncomfortable and, in an otherwise healthy adult, rarely life-threatening on its own — the real dangers are dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea, and the sharply elevated overdose risk when someone relapses after tolerance has dropped.
Short-acting opioids (heroin, oxycodone, hydrocodone): symptoms begin 6–12 hours after the last dose, peak at 24–72 hours, and largely resolve over 5–10 days.
Long-acting opioids (methadone, extended-release formulations): onset 24–48 hours, with a longer and flatter course lasting two to three weeks or more.
Symptoms include muscle and bone aching, restless legs, yawning, runny nose and eyes, goosebumps and chills alternating with sweating, dilated pupils, nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramping, diarrhea, insomnia, anxiety and severe craving. Mood, sleep and craving often remain disrupted for weeks after the physical symptoms clear.
The most dangerous moment in opioid addiction is the week after withdrawal. Tolerance falls fast; the old dose is now potentially fatal. This is why detox alone, with no medication and no ongoing treatment, has poor outcomes and elevated mortality.
This is not a controversial point in medicine, though it remains stigmatized socially. Medication for opioid use disorder roughly halves mortality compared with counseling alone. Three options:
There is no fixed “right” duration. Many people do best staying on medication for years, and some indefinitely. Stopping is a decision to make deliberately with a clinician when life is stable — not a milestone to rush.
Medication handles the physiology. It does not by itself rebuild a life. Effective treatment also includes cognitive behavioral therapy and relapse-prevention skills, contingency management, treatment of co-occurring depression, anxiety, PTSD or ADHD, pain management that does not depend on opioids, case management for housing and employment, family involvement, and peer support. Axis Mental Health provides the outpatient therapy, psychiatric care and dual-diagnosis treatment side of that plan and coordinates with medication prescribers and detox providers as needed.
No, and this misconception keeps people from a treatment that saves lives. Addiction is defined by compulsive use and harm. Someone stable on prescribed buprenorphine is physically dependent, not addicted — they are working, parenting, not seeking, not overdosing. By the same logic, insulin is not a diabetes addiction.
Over the counter at most pharmacies without a prescription. In California it is also distributed free through the state Naloxone Distribution Project and many county harm-reduction and syringe-services programs. Ask for the nasal spray and get two doses.
It happens, though most people prescribed opioids briefly for acute pain do not develop a use disorder. Risk rises with longer duration, higher doses, a personal or family history of addiction, and untreated mental health conditions. If you have those risk factors, say so before surgery so your pain plan can account for them.
Not for buprenorphine or methadone. Buprenorphine is started once you are in mild-to-moderate withdrawal to avoid precipitated withdrawal, and methadone can be started while opioids are still present. Only naltrexone requires being fully opioid-free first. For many people, going straight onto medication is safer than detoxing first.
Much of the treatment, yes. Buprenorphine can be initiated and managed via telehealth under current federal flexibilities, and therapy and psychiatric follow-up work well remotely. Axis Mental Health offers telehealth throughout California, which matters if you are in a rural part of Riverside or San Bernardino County.
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If this is an emergency, call 911. If you are in crisis or having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. For free, confidential treatment referrals 24 hours a day, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357.
This page is general health education, not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a treatment plan. Never stop or change a prescribed medication without speaking to a clinician first. Withdrawal from alcohol, benzodiazepines and barbiturates can cause seizures and can be fatal without medical supervision.