Drug and Alcohol Detox in Riverside County, California
There are four places you can detox in this county, and the right one depends on how dangerous your withdrawal is likely to be. This page explains how to tell — including when the answer is not us.
Six beds
One location, not a campus
Wildomar, CA
Southwest Riverside County
DHCS licensed
#330221AP
Joint Commission
Accredited since 2025
Four options, and who each one is for
Riverside County is large — it runs from the edge of Los Angeles County to the Arizona border — so a search for detox here returns places that may be two hours away and settings that may not suit the situation at all.
There are four realistic routes. They are not interchangeable.
A hospital emergency department
FOR SEVERE WITHDRAWAL — AND NOTHING ELSE WILL DO
Seizures, confusion, hallucinations the person cannot recognize as unreal, fever with a racing heart. These belong in a hospital, immediately.
An emergency department will treat withdrawal regardless of insurance or ability to pay, and regardless of whether anyone has agreed to treatment afterwards. If you are weighing up whether a situation is serious enough, it is.
FOR MEDI-CAL AND FOR ANYONE WITHOUT INSURANCE
The county’s own system. It runs substance use services across Riverside County and is the proper starting point if private treatment is out of reach financially.
This is not a lesser option. For someone with Medi-Cal it is usually the right one, and a private facility that fails to mention it is not being straight with you.
A licensed private residential detox facility
FOR WITHDRAWAL THAT NEEDS WATCHING, BUT NOT A HOSPITAL
Facilities like ours. Licensed by the California Department of Health Care Services for detox, with staff present around the clock.
Every one of these in California has a license number you can look up. Ask for it.
At home
FOR A NARROW GROUP — AND DANGEROUS FOR EVERYBODY ELSE
Appropriate only when none of the risk factors below are present. The next section is how to tell which you are.
Which setting your withdrawal actually needs
This is the part most treatment websites skip, because the honest answer sometimes sends you somewhere else.
Go to an emergency department or call 911 now if
- There has been a seizure
- The person is confused or does not know where they are
- There are hallucinations they cannot recognize as unreal
- There is fever, a very fast heart rate, or severely elevated blood pressure
- They cannot keep fluids down
Severe withdrawal belongs in a hospital. An emergency department can manage it whether or not anyone has agreed to treatment afterwards.
Home detox is not appropriate if
- There is a history of withdrawal seizures or delirium
- There have been several previous detoxes
- The person is over 65
- There is a significant other illness
- It follows a long run of heavy drinking
- There is benzodiazepine dependence alongside alcohol
- Nobody is at home to watch through the night
A residential facility usually fits when
- Stopping at home has been tried and has not held
- Withdrawal needs watching, but not a hospital
- There is somewhere to go straight afterwards, rather than back to the same house on day four
- A small, quiet setting suits better than a large facility
Any single item in the left-hand column means supervision. Our guide to how long alcohol detox takes goes through the timeline hour by hour and the signs someone needs medical detox covers how to raise it with someone who insists they can manage alone.
Sanaji Thankachen, MD — California license A103818, issued by the Medical Board of California.
What same-day admission actually involves
People search for detox at two in the morning, and the question underneath is usually whether this can happen today. Often it can — here is how same-day admission works — and here is what has to happen first.
The call
Ten to fifteen minutes. What the substance is, how much, how long, when the last use was, any previous withdrawal history, any other health conditions. You can do this without giving a name.
A clinical judgment
Based on those answers, whether residential detox is the right setting at all. If the answer is a hospital, we will say so on that call rather than admitting someone and transferring them later.
A bed
We have six. Because we are small, the person answering the phone knows immediately whether one is free — there is no checking with another department.
Benefits
We can run an out-of-network PPO benefit check while you are still on the phone, usually in the same conversation. No name required for that either.
Arrival
If all four line up, the same day is realistic.
What delays it: no bed free, a clinical picture that needs a hospital first, or an insurance situation that needs a conversation before anyone commits. We would rather tell you that on the phone than halfway through an admission.
Detox in Southwest Riverside County
Dunn Recovery is in Wildomar, between Lake Elsinore and Murrieta, just off the I-15. These are drive times to our one location, not to other facilities:
Wildomar
Our location
Murrieta
8 minutes
Lake Elsinore
10 minutes
Temecula
15 minutes
Menifee
20 minutes
Riverside
45 minutes
Detox happens in Wildomar. We have no other sites, and nobody is moved between buildings partway through a stay. The same is true of residential treatment across Riverside County.
What we detox from
- Alcohol
- Opioids, including heroin and fentanyl
- Benzodiazepines
- Cocaine
- Methamphetamine
What we do not provide
- Outpatient treatment
- Intensive outpatient
- Sober living housing
- Methadone maintenance
If one of those is what you need, call anyway and we will tell you where to start.
Paying for Detox
Dunn Recovery is out of network with all insurance carriers
We work with most PPO plans on an out-of-network basis. We check benefits free, by phone, and tell you what your plan is likely to cover before you commit to anything.
We cannot accept HMO plans, Medi-Cal, Medicare or Medicaid. If that is your coverage, the county system is the route, and we will point you at it.
Payment plans are available. How out-of-network insurance works covers the part people usually get wrong — particularly the out-of-pocket maximum, which almost nobody asks about and which changes the numbers more than anything else.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where in Riverside County are you?
22650 Lost Road, Wildomar, California 92595, in the southwest of the county between Lake Elsinore and Murrieta. It is our only location.
Can someone be admitted for detox the same day?
Often, when it is clinically appropriate and a bed is free. Because we have six beds and one location, the person answering the phone knows immediately what is available.
What substances do you detox from?
Alcohol, opioids including heroin and fentanyl, benzodiazepines, cocaine and methamphetamine.
How long does detox take?
It depends on the substance, how long and how heavily it was used, and the person’s health. Anyone quoting a fixed number before an assessment is guessing.
Do you serve Temecula, Murrieta and Lake Elsinore?
Yes — people come to us from across southwest Riverside County. Detox itself takes place at our house in Wildomar. We do not have facilities in other cities.
What if I have Medi-Cal?
We cannot accept it. Riverside University Health System — Behavioral Health runs county substance use services and is the right starting point. Call us anyway if you are not sure where to begin.
Is detox on its own enough?
No. Detox resolves physical dependence and nothing else. Everything that drove the use is unchanged at the end of it, which is why detox and residential treatment usually run together — and here they happen in the same house, without a transfer.
How do I check a facility is properly licensed?
Ask any facility for its DHCS license number. You can check it with the DHCS Licensing and Certification Division on (916) 322-2911, and the state also publishes a map of treatment facility violations. Ours is 330221AP.
Call and we will tell you what we can do
Someone answers 24 hours a day. The first call is a conversation, not a sales pitch — if we are not the right place, we will say so.
Dunn Recovery and Behavioral Healthcare Services, LLC · 22650 Lost Road, Wildomar, CA 92595
