Home / Alcohol & drug addiction / Fentanyl addiction
Fentanyl and synthetic opioids
Fentanyl addiction treatment in Spain
A licensed 28-day residential programme in the Málaga countryside, run by an English-speaking team, for dependence on fentanyl or another synthetic opioid, whether it began with a patch or with a supply that was never what it claimed to be.
A private room as standard, a price published in full, and no referral fees paid to anyone for sending you here.
Checked for accuracy on 28 July 2026. Next review due July 2027. This page is general information about our programme and is not a substitute for advice about your own situation.
Fentanyl addiction is treated at Sierra Recovery as a 28-day residential programme in the Málaga countryside, published in full at £9,900. Fentanyl dependence is physical and the margin for error is unusually small, so a medically supervised withdrawal is completed in an appropriate medical setting before you arrive, because we are a registered health centre and not a hospital. What follows is three structured group sessions a day, one-to-one therapy, a seventeen-module curriculum and a relapse plan that names the overdose risk directly, because tolerance falls during any break in use. Below is what that actually involves, who it suits, and what to do today if you are not ready to call yet.
Programme
28 days residential
Published price
£9,900
Group work
3 sessions a day
Room
Private, as standard
Language
English throughout
Registration
N.I.C.A. 67331
What fentanyl addiction actually is
Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid used in hospitals for severe pain and in patches for chronic pain. It is roughly fifty to a hundred times more potent than morphine, which is the fact that governs everything else about it. Doses are measured in micrograms rather than milligrams, and the difference between a dose that works and a dose that stops someone breathing is very small.
Two routes lead here. The first is prescribed fentanyl, usually patches or lozenges for chronic or cancer pain, where tolerance climbs and the medication gradually takes over. The second is illicit fentanyl and its analogues, which increasingly appear in heroin, in counterfeit tablets sold as oxycodone or benzodiazepines, and in other powders, very often without the buyer knowing. In the United Kingdom, synthetic opioids including nitazenes have been found in samples sold as something else entirely.
That is why this page is blunt about the risks. With fentanyl, the gap between a problem and a fatality is measured in one dose.
Very slow or stopped breathing, blue lips, pinpoint pupils and unresponsiveness mean an opioid overdose. Call an ambulance immediately and give naloxone if you have it. More than one dose is often needed with fentanyl because it is so potent. Naloxone is available free from UK drug services and it is worth carrying if anyone around you uses opioids. Never use alone. In an emergency call 999 in the UK or 112 anywhere in Europe, or NHS 111 for urgent advice that is not an emergency.
Why tolerance makes it so dangerous
Tolerance to the pain relief and the euphoria builds far faster than tolerance to respiratory depression. The dose needed for an effect climbs steeply while the dose that suppresses breathing barely moves, so the margin narrows every week. Then there is the reverse problem: tolerance falls fast during any break in use, in hospital, in custody or after a detox, and returning to a previous dose is how most opioid deaths happen.
Add unpredictability. With illicit supply there is no way to know the strength or the contents of what is in front of you, and analogues vary in potency by orders of magnitude. Mixing with benzodiazepines, alcohol or gabapentinoids compounds the respiratory risk further, and that combination is extremely common.
The signs people recognise too late
| What you might notice | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| Using to feel normal rather than to feel anything | The switch from reward to maintenance, and the clearest single marker of dependence. |
| Patches used more often, chewed, or more than one at a time | Escalation of a prescribed route, and a very high-risk one because it defeats the slow release. |
| Withdrawal starting within hours of the last dose | Physical dependence. It will not resolve on its own and it needs a medical plan. |
| Not knowing what is actually in what you are using | The defining risk of the current supply. Contents and strength are unpredictable. |
| Using alone | The single biggest risk factor for a fatal overdose, because nobody is there to call an ambulance or give naloxone. |
| A previous overdose, or a near miss | The strongest predictor of a future one. This is the point at which waiting is no longer neutral. |
| Repeatedly deciding to stop and not managing it | The gap between intention and behaviour is the definition of the disorder, not a failure of character. |
If several of those land, our four-question self-check takes under a minute, stores nothing, and will tell you whether a fuller conversation is worth having.
Where the treatment actually happens
People ask for photographs before they ask about therapy, and they are right to. You are deciding whether you could live somewhere for a month. This is the place, not a stock library.
See the full gallery · how people get here.
Medical detox comes first, and it is not optional
Sierra Recovery is entered in the Registro Andaluz de Centros, Servicios y Establecimientos Sanitarios (the Andalusian register of health centres, services and establishments) under N.I.C.A. 67331, authorised by the Junta de Andalucía for the care unit atención sanitaria a drogodependientes (healthcare for drug dependency, authorised care unit U.71). That is a registered health centre with a supervised treatment residence. It is not a hospital and it is not a detox unit.
Anyone dependent on fentanyl needs a medically supervised withdrawal, and at Sierra that is completed in an appropriate medical setting before admission, arranged as part of your assessment and billed separately from the programme fee. Fentanyl is stored in body fat and released slowly, which is why withdrawal can begin later and last longer than people expect, and why it is managed by a medical team rather than endured. Qualified nursing is part of the team during your stay. If the assessment says a more intensive medical setting is the safer choice for you, we say so and we do not admit you. You can check our registration yourself on the Junta's public register.
Where opioid substitution treatment, methadone or buprenorphine, is part of your care, that is a decision for the medical team managing your withdrawal. It changes the timing of a residential stay considerably, and we will tell you that at assessment, before you book anything.
The withdrawal timeline, roughly
| When | What tends to happen |
|---|---|
| 8 to 24 hours | Restlessness, watering eyes and nose, yawning, sweating, aching muscles and rising anxiety. Onset is often later than with heroin. |
| 1 to 4 days | The peak. Cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, goose flesh, no sleep, and cravings at their most intense. |
| 5 to 10 days | Physical symptoms settle, more slowly than with shorter-acting opioids because of accumulation in fat tissue. |
| Weeks to months | Post-acute symptoms: low mood, poor sleep, irritability and waves of craving. This is the window the residential month is built for. |
Timings vary with the dose, the route, how long you have used, what else is involved and your general health. Your assessment sets the actual plan.
Not sure how the detox gets arranged?
The assessment answers that before you commit to anything, and it happens before you travel. A clinician will tell you honestly if we are the wrong setting for you.
What a day here looks like
Nobody arrives knowing how twenty eight days are actually spent. This is the real timetable, Monday to Friday.
| Time | What happens |
|---|---|
| 08:00 | Breakfast, cooked by a Michelin-trained chef |
| 09:15 | Planning: the day is set out together |
| 10:30 | Process group, the harder one |
| 12:00 | Therapeutic group |
| 13:15 | Lunch |
| 14:30 | Psychoeducation, working through the curriculum |
| 16:00 | Group activity, often outdoors or with the horses |
| 18:30 | Dinner |
| 20:00 | Day closing, together |
Saturdays turn to holistic and body-based work. Sundays are a supervised excursion, because reconnecting with the world outside a clinic is part of the treatment rather than a break from it.
What the treatment actually involves
The programme runs Monday to Friday on a fixed structure, with Saturdays given to holistic and body-based work and Sundays to a supervised excursion. Rather than list therapy names, here is what each part of the week is for.
Three group sessions a day, five days a week
The day opens with a process group at 10:30, a second therapeutic group runs at midday, and a psychoeducation session follows lunch. A group activity fills the late afternoon and the day closes together in the evening. That is roughly fifteen structured group contacts a week, which is the part most people underestimate before they arrive and value most afterwards.
Groups are small, in English, and run by the clinical team. Hearing someone else describe your own thinking back to you does something that individual work cannot, and it is the fastest route out of the isolation that opioid use builds.
A seventeen-module curriculum, not a rest cure
The psychoeducation strand moves through a fixed seventeen-module curriculum written by our clinical director. It is the core of what we call the Regulation Model, which is our adaptation of the PROMIS Clinics methodology to this centre rather than a model of our own invention. It covers skills training, communication styles, boundaries and decision-making, trigger recognition, self-esteem and self-concept, dual diagnosis, self-care and habits, emotions, crisis identification and management, suicide prevention, goals, grief, values, trauma and relapse, perfectionism, loneliness and isolation, and cross-addiction. Every module runs the same structure: check-in, theory, an experiential dynamic, shared reflection, and a commitment carried into the week.
The cognitive work uses the ABC model, the same structure that underpins cognitive behavioural approaches: the event, the belief you attach to it, and the consequence that follows. It is taught, practised, applied between sessions and reviewed, rather than talked about once.
Individual therapy alongside the group programme
One-to-one sessions run three times a week and are where the material that will not surface in a group gets worked. For most people that is the thing underneath the use rather than the use itself.
You are treated by the same small team throughout, in the same house. Nobody is handed between departments, and there is no rotation of therapists mid-stay.
Yoga, meditation and body-based work
Saturdays turn to holistic and body-based practice: yoga, meditation and mindfulness, breathwork, art, and time outdoors on the land. This is not decoration and it is not a spa timetable. Early recovery is a physiological event as much as a psychological one, and sleep, appetite and the ability to sit still are usually the first things to return.
The self-care and habits module runs alongside it, treating rest as a right rather than a reward and food as connection rather than control.
Equine therapy on working farmland
The horses live here, on the forty hectares around the house, and equine work is part of the working week. Horses respond to what you are actually feeling rather than what you say you are feeling, which is why the work reaches people who have learned to talk their way around a therapy session.
What happens when you go home
Aftercare is planned before you leave rather than mentioned on the last day. For clients returning to the UK, care continues online or in person at the PROMIS clinics in London, with a weekly session for a full year, more than 48 in the twelve months after discharge, and a written handover to your GP so nothing has to be explained from scratch. For clients elsewhere in Europe we arrange continuity online and help find local services.
Alongside that, mutual-aid groups are free, run everywhere, and are worth using whatever else you choose.
Who will actually treat your fentanyl addiction
A small team, in one house, in English. You are not handed between departments and there is no rotation of therapists halfway through your stay.
Nerea Encinas Sánchez
Director · General Health Psychologist
MSc General Health Psychology. Leads clinical standards, the assessment you have before you travel, and admissions.
Berenice Paramés Jones
General Health Psychologist
Individual and group psychological work inside the house, crisis follow-up and coordination of the group programme.
Marta Leal
Social worker
Family mediation, links to services back home, and preparing for independent life after discharge.
Robin Lefever
Founder of Sierra Recovery; MD, PROMIS Clinics UK
Founder of Sierra Recovery and Managing Director of PROMIS Clinics, whose method this programme adapts. PROMIS has been treating addiction in the United Kingdom since the mid-1980s, and Robin has worked in addiction treatment for around 35 years, with thousands of patients treated with the PROMIS method in the United Kingdom.
Meet the whole clinical team and their qualifications.
What is treated, and what that looks like day to day
| What you arrive with | How it is worked |
|---|---|
| Withdrawal | Completed under medical supervision before admission. Qualified nursing on site throughout, and post-acute symptoms are expected and planned for rather than treated as setbacks. |
| Overdose risk | Named explicitly in the relapse plan, including the fall in tolerance after any period of abstinence and the recommendation to have naloxone available. This is the most important conversation of the stay. |
| Pain | Where fentanyl was prescribed for pain, that pain is addressed rather than ignored. Pain management is arranged through the appropriate medical route and coordinated with the psychological work. |
| Cravings | The trigger-recognition module maps your own cues and builds a personal safety plan, practised in group rather than described in theory. |
| Trauma | The trauma and relapse module, run alongside the addiction work rather than after it. See trauma and addiction. |
| Other drugs in the mix | Benzodiazepines, alcohol and gabapentinoids all compound respiratory risk and change the detox plan. Assessed in full before admission. |
Treatment options for fentanyl and synthetic opioid addiction, and how they compare
Residential rehab is one treatment option among several, and it is not automatically the right one. Being straight about that is more useful to you than a page that pretends otherwise.
| Option | What it involves, and who it suits |
|---|---|
| Medical detox | Required. Fentanyl accumulates in body fat so withdrawal can start later and run longer. Completed in an appropriate medical setting before admission, billed separately. |
| Residential rehab inpatient treatment | Living at the centre for the whole programme. It suits people who need distance from an unpredictable supply and a plan that names the overdose risk directly. |
| Outpatient treatment day programmes and therapy sessions | Attending sessions and going home between them. Works alongside opioid substitution treatment where someone is stable and supported. |
| Community and NHS services | Free local drug and alcohol treatment services, reached through your GP or by self-referral. Waiting times vary and residential placements are rationed, but the support is real and it costs nothing. For many people this is the right first step rather than a lesser one. |
| Mutual aid and support groups | Free peer support meeting in person and online, everywhere, with no waiting list and no cost. Worth using alongside whatever else you choose rather than instead of it. |
A treatment plan should be built around your circumstances. If an outpatient or community route fits you better, we will say so at assessment and we will not charge you for the conversation.
The therapies used, in plain terms
Every centre lists the same acronyms, so here is what each one actually is and where it appears in the week.
| Therapy | What it is, and when you would meet it here |
|---|---|
| Cognitive behavioural therapy CBT, and the related REBT | Evidence-based work on the link between an event, the belief you attach to it and what you then do. Taught through the ABC model in psychoeducation, practised in group therapy and applied between sessions. It is the backbone of the cognitive work rather than an optional extra. |
| Acceptance and commitment therapy ACT | Learning to have a difficult feeling without having to act on it, and choosing behaviour by your values instead. Module eight, on emotions, is built on it. |
| Dialectical behaviour therapy DBT | Distress tolerance, emotional regulation and interpersonal skills, used where emotions arrive faster and larger than they can be managed. See DBT. |
| EMDR | A structured trauma therapy, used where trauma is driving the use and always after stabilisation rather than before it. See EMDR. |
| Group therapy | Three group sessions a day, five days a week: a process group, a therapeutic group and psychoeducation. It is the largest single component of the treatment programme. See group therapy. |
| Individual therapy one-to-one counselling | Three therapy sessions a week with the same clinician throughout, where material that will not surface in a group gets worked. |
| Family therapy | Offered where it is wanted, in person or online, because the people around you are part of what happens next. See the family programme. |
| Motivational interviewing | Used throughout rather than booked as a session. It is the stance the team takes: working with your reasons for change rather than arguing you into someone else’s. |
| Holistic therapies | Yoga, mindfulness and meditation, breathwork, art and equine work, on Saturdays and through the week. See equine therapy and all our therapies. |
Every element above is delivered by the clinical team as part of the residential programme. Your treatment plan sets out which of them apply to you, and it is reviewed during the stay rather than fixed on day one.
Where else to get help, free
Not everyone needs residential rehab, and nobody should be waiting on a private programme before they get any support at all. Everything below is free, and none of these organisations pays or receives a fee from us.
| Organisation | What they do |
|---|---|
| NHS drug and alcohol services | Free local treatment services, reached through your GP or by self-referral. The usual starting point for community-based drug and alcohol treatment. |
| Talk to FRANK | Confidential drugs information and advice, 24 hours a day, on 0300 123 6600. No judgement and no cost. |
| Narcotics Anonymous | Free mutual aid meetings for anyone with a drug problem, in person and online, with no cost and no waiting list. |
| We Are With You | Free, confidential support for drug, alcohol and mental health problems, in person in many areas and by webchat. |
| Adfam | Support and information for families and friends affected by someone else’s drug, alcohol or gambling use. |
| Samaritans | Free and confidential, 24 hours a day on 116 123, for anyone struggling to cope or having thoughts of suicide. |
Sierra Recovery neither pays nor accepts referral fees, so nothing on this list depends on where you go. If a free or community service is the right fit for you, use it.
How to get ready
- Compare on licence, not on photographsAsk any centre abroad for its registration number and the register it sits on, then look it up yourself. Ours is N.I.C.A. 67331 on the Junta de Andalucía register.
- Get the medical picture togetherCurrent medications, any previous withdrawal, and any diagnosed conditions. This is what the pre-travel assessment needs, and it is what decides whether a detox is required first.
- Ask what the price actually includesOurs is published: private room, meals, the core therapy programme, and a year of weekly UK aftercare, with medical, psychiatric, laboratory and hospital costs quoted separately. You get an itemised written quotation before admission.
- Be complete about what you are takingPrescribed fentanyl, patches, illicit supply, other opioids, benzodiazepines, alcohol, everything. With fentanyl an incomplete picture is not an inconvenience, it is a safety problem.
- Have naloxone available now, not laterIt is free from UK drug services and it reverses an opioid overdose. Getting it today is worth more than anything else on this page.
- Do not use alone in the meantimeMost fatal overdoses happen with nobody present. If you are waiting on an assessment or a detox bed, this is the single change that most reduces risk.
How Sierra compares with private opioid rehab at home
| What you get | Sierra Recovery | Typical private residential clinic |
|---|---|---|
| 28-day residential programme | £9,900, published in full | UK £12,000–£40,000 · Australia A$30,000–A$50,000 |
| Is the price on the website | Yes, in full | Usually "contact us for pricing" |
| Your own private room | Included as standard | Often an upgrade |
| Referral fees paid to third parties | None | Common |
| Written itemised quotation before admission | Yes | Varies |
| Distance from the people and places tied to use | Rural Andalucía | Usually close to home |
| Medically supervised detox | Arranged and quoted separately | Quoted separately |
Comparison figures are the published ranges collected on our cost calculator: the United Kingdom at roughly £12,000 to £40,000 a month, Australia at roughly A$30,000 to A$50,000, and the United States at roughly $20,000 to $40,000 for a 30-day programme. New Zealand, South African and Canadian ranges are set out on the country cost guides. Indicative, not a quotation. Every clinic sets its own fees.
When fentanyl sits on top of something else
Opioid use very often sits on top of chronic pain, trauma, depression or anxiety, and treating the using while sending the rest elsewhere rarely holds. At Sierra the emotional and trauma work runs alongside the addiction curriculum rather than after it. Our dual diagnosis and trauma and addiction pages explain how the two are worked with together. Where psychiatric care or medication is part of your treatment, it is arranged through the appropriate medical route, and we will be honest with you before admission if a more intensive setting is the safer choice.
When is it time?
With fentanyl the honest answer is now. Not because of urgency as a sales device, but because the risk profile is different from every other substance on this site. Every failed attempt to stop lowers tolerance without removing the addiction, and the supply is unpredictable enough that a routine dose can be a fatal one. If you are reading this for someone else, get naloxone today and make the call.
Talk to a clinician today
You will speak to our admissions team, all of them clinicians. Confidential, no obligation, and we will tell you honestly whether this programme fits or whether something closer to home would serve you better.
Questions people actually ask
Do I have to detox before I come?
Yes. Fentanyl dependence is physical, and Sierra is a registered health centre rather than a hospital or a detox unit. A medically supervised withdrawal is completed in an appropriate medical setting before your residential stay begins, arranged as part of your assessment and billed separately. Qualified nurses are part of the team during your stay.
How long does fentanyl withdrawal last?
Symptoms usually begin eight to twenty four hours after the last dose, which is often later than with heroin, peak between day one and day four, and settle physically over five to ten days. Because fentanyl accumulates in fat tissue the course can run longer than with shorter-acting opioids. Low mood, poor sleep and waves of craving can continue for weeks or months afterwards.
What is naloxone and should I have it?
Naloxone is a medicine that reverses an opioid overdose by displacing the opioid from its receptors. It is available free from UK drug services, it is safe to give if you are unsure, and with fentanyl more than one dose is often needed because of its potency. If you or anyone around you uses opioids, having it and knowing how to use it is the most useful thing you can do this week.
Can I come if I am on methadone or buprenorphine?
Tell us at assessment and we will be straight with you about what is possible. Opioid substitution changes the detox plan and its timing substantially, and it is decided by the medical team managing your withdrawal rather than by us. We will not admit anyone on a plan that is not clinically safe.
How long is the programme and what does it cost?
It is a 28-day residential programme, published in full at GBP 9,900. That covers a private room, meals, the core therapy programme, and a year of weekly UK aftercare. Hospital detox is arranged and billed separately, as are medical, psychiatric and laboratory costs. You get an itemised written quotation before admission.
I did not know I was taking fentanyl. Does that change the treatment?
It changes the conversation but not the programme. Fentanyl and its analogues now turn up in heroin, in counterfeit tablets sold as oxycodone or benzodiazepines, and in other powders, frequently without the buyer knowing. What it means practically is that harm reduction, naloxone, never using alone, and testing where available become part of the plan from the first day rather than an afterthought.
How do I get help for fentanyl addiction?
The first step towards recovery is an assessment, and ours is free and carries no obligation. You can also seek help through your GP, through a free local drug and alcohol treatment service, or through a mutual aid group, and none of those routes costs anything. If you want to talk it through with a clinician, call +44 1202 653136 and you will reach our admissions team. Carry naloxone, which is free from UK drug services and reverses an opioid overdose, and do not use alone.
What does fentanyl addiction treatment involve, from start to finish?
The course of treatment runs in four stages. An assessment before you travel, which decides whether a medically supervised detox is needed first. Any detox, completed in an appropriate medical setting and billed separately. Then the 28-day residential treatment programme itself: three group therapy sessions a day, individual therapy three times a week and the seventeen-module curriculum. Then aftercare, agreed before you leave and continuing online or in person in London.
How much does fentanyl rehab cost, and what affects the price?
Sierra publishes a single figure: GBP 9,900 for the 28-day residential programme, with a private room included. What changes the total is whether you need a medically supervised detox, which is arranged and billed separately, and any medical, psychiatric or laboratory costs. Private residential rehab elsewhere commonly runs from around GBP 12,000 to GBP 40,000 a month in the United Kingdom and from roughly A$30,000 to A$50,000 in Australia. You get an itemised written quotation before admission, and we neither pay nor accept referral fees.
What are the signs and symptoms of fentanyl addiction?
Fentanyl withdrawal symptoms start eight to twenty four hours after the last dose, often later than with heroin, and peak between day one and day four. The signs of dependence are using to avoid withdrawal rather than for effect, patches used more often or more than one at a time, and a supply whose contents you cannot be sure of.
Is lasting recovery from fentanyl addiction actually possible?
Yes, and the evidence is better than the public conversation suggests. What predicts long-term recovery is not willpower but what is in place afterwards: continuing therapy, a treated mental health condition, a support network and a relapse plan that was written before it was needed. That is why completing fentanyl rehab matters less on its own than what follows it, and why aftercare is planned during the stay, so it is in place before you leave.
How can I help someone with fentanyl addiction?
Start by getting support for yourself, because living alongside someone with an addiction is its own burden and Adfam and Al-Anon exist for exactly that. Beyond that: raise it when they are not intoxicated, be specific about what you have seen rather than general about what they are, and offer a concrete next step such as an assessment or a call to a free service. Ultimatums delivered in anger rarely work. We speak to families every day and that conversation costs nothing.
+
Talk to a clinician today
You will speak to our admissions team, English-speaking clinicians who know the programme and the people in it. Callback within 24 hours.
Registered health centre. Authorised by the Junta de Andalucía, N.I.C.A. 67331.
