Alcohol Addiction Treatment in Colorado

We run two Colorado sites and they do different jobs. Denver Mental Health & Counseling by The Recovery Village sits in Highlands Ranch. Its own page lists outpatient care, an intensive outpatient program and dual diagnosis treatment [8]. The Recovery Village Palmer Lake sits north of Colorado Springs. Its page lists medical detox, inpatient treatment, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient care, outpatient care and aftercare planning [9]. Where you start turns on one thing: whether stopping needs medical supervision. An assessment decides that, not a web page.

The rest of this page is built around that choice. What the disorder is in clinical terms. When stopping is a medical event. What runs at each site. The three drugs approved for it. How state coverage works. For the wider view, start with our overview of treatment across Colorado.

Alcohol Use in Colorado: What the State Data Shows

We have not printed a Colorado drinking figure on this page. The reason is practical. A number typed into a page is frozen on the day it is typed. The state’s own data is not.

Colorado’s Behavioral Health Administration runs a Performance Hub, where it publishes data trends on four behavioral health topics: mental health, substance use disorder, complaints and violations, and child and youth data [5]. Its home page separately points people to the OwnPath Care Directory through Colorado LIFTS to search for a service [10]. That is where a current Colorado number belongs. Read it there, on the day you need it.

What can be said without a number is the definition, because that is what an assessment applies. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism describes alcohol use disorder as a medical condition marked by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational, or health consequences [1]. It can be mild, moderate or severe [1]. Severity follows the count of criteria a person meets. Mild is two to three. Moderate is four to five. Severe is six or more [1].

That matters here, because severity drives the level of care, not the amount someone drinks. Our page on withdrawal symptoms covers the physical end of it. Our alcohol addiction overview covers the rest.

Where Colorado Residents Can Get Alcohol Treatment: Denver Mental Health & Counseling

The Highlands Ranch site is at 630 Plaza Drive, Suite 101. That is Douglas County, south of Denver on the C-470 corridor. Its own page lists outpatient care, an intensive outpatient program and dual diagnosis treatment [8].

That shape of service suits a specific person. Someone whose drinking has not reached the point where stopping is risky. Or someone stepping down after a stay somewhere else. The dual diagnosis track matters more than it sounds. Low mood, anxiety and trauma sit alongside heavy drinking often enough that treating one and ignoring the other rarely holds.

Where stopping has to be supervised, the route is Palmer Lake. Its page lists medical detox along with inpatient treatment and the step-down levels [9]. Put the handover to admissions on the first call. Who assesses. Where the first night is spent. How the move back down to outpatient care is set up. Our levels of care explainer sets out what each tier involves.

Does Alcohol Use Need Medical Detox First?

If someone is having a seizure, is unresponsive or has trouble breathing, call 911. For a mental-health crisis call or text 988.

Sometimes it does, and alcohol is the substance where the answer is least safe to guess at.

NIAAA puts it plainly: people with severe alcohol use disorder may need medical help to avoid alcohol withdrawal if they decide to stop drinking, and alcohol withdrawal is a potentially life-threatening process that can occur when someone who has been drinking heavily for a prolonged period of time suddenly stops [1]. Doctors can prescribe medications to address the symptoms and make the process safer and less distressing [1].

The timing is reasonably predictable. Signs and symptoms of acute alcohol withdrawal generally start 6 to 24 hours after the last drink [2]. Symptoms tend to peak by 24 to 72 hours, but may go on for weeks [3]. Seizures, delirium tremens and dysregulation of body temperature, pulse and blood pressure are outcomes in severe alcohol dependence that can lead to fatal consequences [2].

If someone is having a seizure, is unresponsive or has trouble breathing, call 911. For a mental-health crisis call or text 988.

Which setting fits is not a preference. People with moderate-to-severe symptoms may need to be treated at a hospital or another facility that treats alcohol withdrawal, where blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate and blood levels of different chemicals in the body are monitored [3]. Mild-to-moderate withdrawal can often be treated in an outpatient setting, which involves daily visits to a provider and someone staying with the person [3].

And detox is the start, not the treatment. Federal guidance is explicit that detoxification alone, without the treatment that follows it, generally leads back to drug use [7]. Our explainer on medical detox covers what supervision adds; inpatient rehab covers what comes after it.

Levels of Care at Denver Mental Health & Counseling: Outpatient, IOP, Dual Diagnosis

Take the three in the order a person usually meets them.

Dual diagnosis treatment changes the plan, not just the timetable. Where a mental health condition sits under the drinking, treating them one after the other tends to mean treating neither well. A wide range of psychiatric conditions occur alongside alcohol use disorder and are linked to a higher risk of it, among them depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [1].

The intensive outpatient program is the heavier option at Highlands Ranch. Several sessions a week. Group and one-to-one work. Built around a job or a family rather than in place of one. It is the usual landing place for someone stepping down from a stay, and a fair starting place for someone not yet at medical risk.

Standard outpatient care is the long, light tail of that. Regular appointments while ordinary life carries on. Most of the real maintenance happens here. It is also the level people stop attending too early.

None of the three is a detox setting. If the assessment calls for medical supervision while someone stops, that happens at Palmer Lake first [9]. The plan then comes back down this ladder.

Medication Options for Alcohol Use Disorder

There are three, and they are not interchangeable.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved naltrexone, in oral and long-acting injectable forms, acamprosate and disulfiram to help people stop or reduce their drinking and prevent a return to drinking [1]. All three are nonaddictive, and they may be used alone or combined with behavioral treatments or mutual-support groups [1].

What this page will not do is tell you which one, or at what dose. That is a prescriber’s decision made with your medical history in front of them, and the pharmacology genuinely differs between the three. Our overview of medication assisted treatment explains how medication fits alongside therapy.

Behavioral treatment is the other half. NIAAA describes behavioral treatments as aimed at changing drinking behavior, and lists brief interventions and reinforcement approaches, treatments that build motivation and teach coping skills, and mindfulness-based therapies [1]. Mutual-support groups add a third layer, available in most communities at low or no cost [1].

Recovery is a realistic expectation rather than a promise. NIDA gives relapse for substance use disorders as 40 to 60 percent, and 50 to 70 percent for hypertension and asthma [7]. The chronic illnesses relapse more often, which is exactly why the comparison is made, and a return to use is read as a signal to resume or adjust treatment [7].

Paying for Alcohol Rehab in Colorado: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Colorado, Health First Colorado

Parity law sets the floor under any commercial plan. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act stops a plan that covers mental health and substance use care from putting harsher limits on it than on medical and surgical care [6]. That reaches prior authorization and step therapy, not just caps on visits and days [6]. The scope is narrower than most people expect. It applies to non-federal governmental plans with more than 50 employees, to group health plans of private employers with more than 50 employees, and to the individual market [6]. Small-employer plans are not covered directly. They get comparable protection through the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits rule instead. And the Act does not make a plan cover this care at all [6].

Does an Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Colorado plan treat either site as in network? That turns on the product and the employer group. Only a benefits check on your own policy settles it. Our guide to whether insurance covers rehab is the place to start on how coverage is structured.

Health First Colorado is the state’s Medicaid program. The Department of Health Care Policy & Financing runs it, along with Child Health Plan Plus [4]. Behavioral health reaches members through regional bodies rather than one statewide plan. Regional Accountable Entities are responsible for administering the capitated behavioral health benefit, establishing and supporting networks of providers, and coordinating medical and community-based services for members in their region [11]. So the question to ask is simple: which body signs off on the level of care you were told you need. Paying directly is the third route. Our breakdown of what rehab costs sets out our own published ranges.

Traveling Within Colorado and From Neighboring States

Colorado is wide, and the two sites sit on the Front Range rather than on the Western Slope, so travel is a real part of this decision for a lot of people.

Highlands Ranch is on the south side of the Denver metro area, reachable from most of the northern Front Range without an overnight stay. Palmer Lake is further south, between Denver and Colorado Springs on the I-25 corridor. For an intensive outpatient program the repeated weekday trip is the thing to test before committing; for inpatient care the drive happens twice.

People do come from Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas and New Mexico, and the practical difference is insurance rather than distance. An out-of-state plan may treat a Colorado campus differently from an in-state one, so verify before travel rather than after arrival. Our page on how admission to rehab works covers the sequence, and our directory of treatment centers shows where our campuses are.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

1. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Understanding Alcohol Use Disorder. National Institutes of Health. https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/understanding-alcohol-use-disorder
2. SAMHSA. Detoxification and Substance Abuse Treatment (TIP 45), Chapter 4: Physical Detoxification Services for Withdrawal From Specific Substances. National Center for Biotechnology Information. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64116/
3. MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia. Alcohol withdrawal. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000764.htm
4. Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing. Department of Health Care Policy and Financing. State of Colorado. https://hcpf.colorado.gov/
5. Colorado Behavioral Health Administration. Performance Hub. State of Colorado. https://bha.colorado.gov/data-and-reports/performance-hub
6. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). https://www.cms.gov/marketplace/private-health-insurance/mental-health-parity-addiction-equity
7. National Institute on Drug Abuse. Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction — Treatment and Recovery. National Institutes of Health. https://nida.nih.gov/publications/drugs-brains-behavior-science-addiction/treatment-recovery
8. The Recovery Village. Denver Mental Health & Counseling by The Recovery Village — Levels of Care. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/denver/
9. The Recovery Village. The Recovery Village Palmer Lake — Levels of Care. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/palmer-lake/
10. Colorado Behavioral Health Administration. Home — Find help for mental health, drug, or alcohol use through Colorado LIFTS. State of Colorado. https://bha.colorado.gov/
11. Colorado Department of Health Care Policy & Financing. Accountable Care Collaborative Phase III. State of Colorado. https://hcpf.colorado.gov/accphaseIII

This page is for general information and is not medical advice. Only a licensed clinician who knows your history can tell you what is right for you. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. For free, confidential support 24/7, call or text 988.

Author

Kevin Wandler, MD

Chief Medical Officer, The Recovery Village