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Residential treatment
Residential addiction treatment in Spain
A licensed 28-day residential programme in the Málaga countryside, run by an English-speaking team, for people for whom stopping at home has already been tried and has not held.
A private room as standard, a price published in full, and no referral fees paid to anyone for sending you here.
Residential treatment at Sierra Recovery is a 28-day stay in a farmhouse in the Málaga countryside, published in full at £9,900, with a private room included as standard. It works by removing the environment that sustains the using, not by being pleasant: three structured group sessions a day, individual therapy three times a week, a seventeen-module curriculum, and an aftercare plan agreed before you leave. Sierra is a registered health centre and not a hospital or detox unit, so any medically supervised withdrawal is completed before you arrive and billed separately. Below is what is included, what is not, who it suits, and who we will not admit.
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 residential treatment actually is
Residential treatment, also called inpatient rehab, means living at a treatment centre for the duration of a structured programme rather than attending sessions and going home. At Sierra that is twenty eight days, in a farmhouse on forty hectares of working farmland in the Málaga countryside, with a fixed timetable of group and individual therapy five days a week.
The reason it works is not that the surroundings are pleasant. It is that addiction is sustained by an environment: the people, the places, the routines, the supply and the cues attached to all of them. Outpatient treatment asks someone to change while every one of those remains in place for twenty three hours of every day. Residential treatment removes them for long enough to build something in the gap.
That is also the honest limit of it. Four weeks does not fix anyone. What it reliably does is interrupt the pattern, get sleep and routine back, treat what is underneath, and produce a plan and a continuing relationship for the year that follows.
Residential or outpatient: which fits
| Residential treatment tends to fit when | Outpatient treatment tends to fit when |
|---|---|
| Attempts to stop at home have failed more than once | This is a first structured attempt and the situation is stable |
| The home environment contains the supply, the people or the routine that sustains the use | Home is safe, supportive and free of the triggers |
| There is a mental health condition alongside the addiction that is not being treated | The mental health picture is stable and already being managed |
| Work, family or study have already given way, so the disruption of a month is smaller than it sounds | Stepping away for a month would itself cause significant harm |
| A medically supervised withdrawal is needed and there is nowhere safe to be afterwards | No physical dependence, or detox already completed with support in place |
| The isolation is severe and daily group contact is the missing element | There is already a strong support network and community around you |
If you are not sure which side you are on, that is what the assessment is for, and it is free. Our short self-check takes under a minute and stores nothing.
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.
What we are, and what we are not
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), as a vivienda de supervisión al tratamiento. That is a registered health centre with a supervised treatment residence. It is not a hospital, not a detox unit and not a psychiatric hospital.
Where you are physically dependent, a medically supervised withdrawal is arranged in an appropriate medical setting and completed before admission, billed separately from the programme fee. 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, and you should do the same with any centre you are considering.
Not sure whether residential treatment is what you need?
The assessment answers that before you commit to anything, and it happens before you travel. A clinician will tell you honestly if outpatient treatment closer to home would serve you better.
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 addiction 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.
What is included, and what is not
The single most useful question to ask any centre. Here is ours, in full.
| Included in the £9,900 | Quoted and billed separately |
|---|---|
| Your own private room, as standard | Medically supervised detox, where it is clinically needed |
| All meals, cooked by a Michelin-trained chef | Medical, psychiatric and laboratory costs |
| Three group sessions a day, five days a week | Hospital care of any kind |
| Individual therapy three times a week | Flights and travel to Málaga |
| The seventeen-module psychoeducation curriculum | Any specialist assessment arranged on your behalf |
| Holistic and body-based work, and equine sessions | Personal items and incidental expenses |
| Standard UK aftercare, online or in person in London | Extended aftercare beyond the standard arrangement |
| A written handover to your GP, with your consent |
You receive an itemised written quotation before admission. We neither pay nor accept referral fees, so nobody has a financial interest in telling you this is the right place for you. See pricing for the full breakdown.
Who will actually treat you
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.
Who comes here
The centre is small and English-speaking, and most clients travel from the United Kingdom, with others from Ireland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and elsewhere in Europe, as well as Spanish residents. What people have in common is more useful than where they are from: almost everyone has tried to stop before, most have a mental health condition alongside the addiction, and a majority arrive after something at home made continuing impossible rather than after a calm decision.
Two groups we do not admit, and we say so at assessment rather than after a deposit: anyone who needs a medical detox that has not been arranged, and anyone who is acutely suicidal, acutely psychotic or in psychiatric crisis, for whom a hospital is the right setting.
Treatment options for 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 wherever there is physical dependence. Completed in an appropriate medical setting before admission and billed separately. |
| Residential rehab inpatient treatment | Living at the centre for the whole programme. It suits people for whom stopping at home has already failed, where the environment sustains the use, or where a mental health condition sits alongside untreated. |
| Outpatient treatment day programmes and therapy sessions | Attending sessions and going home between them. Often the proportionate choice where home is stable and supportive and this is a first structured attempt. |
| 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.
- Sort the arrangements at home before you flyWork, childcare, pets, bills. A month is short, and spending the first week of it managing logistics from a distance costs you the part of the stay that matters most.
- Decide what you want to be differentNot "stop using", which is the outcome, but what you want back. People who arrive with that answer do measurably better in the groups.
How Sierra compares with private residential treatment 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.
What happens after the twenty eight days
Aftercare is planned during the stay rather than mentioned on the last day, because discharge is the point at which most of the risk sits. For clients returning to the UK, care continues online or in person at the PROMIS clinics in London with the same clinician, alongside a weekly group 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. Mutual-aid groups are free, run everywhere, and are worth using whatever else you choose. See aftercare and discharge.
When is it time?
If stopping at home has failed more than once, if the environment you live in is part of what keeps it going, or if there is something underneath the using that has never been treated, that is enough. Residential treatment is not a last resort and treating it as one is why people arrive later and in worse condition than they needed to.
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
How long is residential treatment at Sierra?
Twenty eight days is the standard programme, published in full at GBP 9,900. Longer stays are possible where they are clinically indicated and are quoted separately. Twenty eight days is not an arbitrary number: it is long enough for withdrawal to have settled, sleep and routine to re-establish, and the psychological work to have taken hold, which shorter stays rarely achieve.
Do you provide detox?
No. Sierra is a registered health centre with an authorised addiction healthcare unit, not a hospital or a detox unit. Where a medically supervised detox is needed it 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.
What is included in the price?
A private room as standard, all meals cooked by a Michelin-trained chef, three group sessions a day five days a week, individual therapy three times a week, the seventeen-module curriculum, holistic and equine work, standard UK aftercare and a written handover to your GP. Detox, medical, psychiatric, laboratory and hospital costs, and travel, are quoted separately. You receive an itemised written quotation before admission.
Can I have a phone, and can family visit?
Phone use is structured rather than banned outright and the arrangement is agreed at admission. Family contact is encouraged and family work is part of the programme where it is wanted. Spain being around three hours from the UK rather than twelve is one of the practical reasons people choose it over more distant destinations.
Is residential treatment better than outpatient?
Not universally, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something. Residential fits where attempts at home have failed, where the home environment sustains the use, where there is an untreated mental health condition alongside, or where a detox is needed and there is nowhere safe to be afterwards. Where home is stable and supportive and this is a first structured attempt, outpatient treatment is often the proportionate choice, and we will say so.
What if I need to leave early?
You are free to leave at any time. Sierra is not a locked facility and nobody is detained. What we ask is a conversation first, because the urge to leave is very often part of the condition rather than a considered decision, and it usually arrives at a predictable point in the second week.
How do I get help for 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.
What does 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 residential 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 addiction?
Across every substance the clinical markers are tolerance, withdrawal, repeated unsuccessful attempts to cut down, and continuing despite what it is costing you. Which of those apply, and which withdrawals are dangerous, is what the assessment establishes.
Is lasting recovery from 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 residential 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 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.
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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.
