What is drug detox in Poznań?
Drug detox at our clinic is an intravenous infusion lasting several hours, preceded by a qualification interview and run under the supervision of medical staff. It eases withdrawal symptoms, replaces fluids and electrolytes, lets the patient sleep and breaks a day spent without food or water.
The name misleads, because it suggests flushing something out. The infusion does not wash the drug away. When a substance leaves the blood is decided by its half-life and by how well the kidneys and liver work, and no drip resets that clock. The procedure is also not treatment of the addiction itself, which is the job of addiction therapy in Poznań conducted over months.
It is worth holding that distinction in mind before you call, because it marks the limit of what a single visit can change. What happens next is described under drug addiction treatment in Poznań.
An infusion at the clinic or round-the-clock supervision: what does the patient get?
One thing separates the two routes: who watches over the patient after dark. A visit to the clinic ends with discharge the same day, so the night and the whole following morning are spent outside the facility, with an accompanying person.
The outpatient range covers situations where the body is exhausted but stable: a comedown after stimulants, dehydration, several days without sleep, being run down and off food, with normal blood pressure and pulse. When benzodiazepines or GHB are involved, when there have been seizures in the past, or when the dose has to be reduced over the following weeks, care lasting day and night is needed.
In the second case we say so already on the phone and point to an addiction treatment centre in Poznań. Booking a visit that would end with sending the patient away would waste time at a moment when every hour counts.
Why are amphetamine, benzodiazepines and GHB three different scenarios?
There is no single answer to how long detox takes, because the script is written by the substance, not by the calendar. It is convenient to group them by where such withdrawal may be conducted.
Within the clinic's range. After amphetamine, cocaine and mephedrone the body needs water, electrolytes and sleep above all. Mood is low then and drive is gone, but the comedown itself is rarely dangerous. For this group there is no pharmacotherapy with an accepted standard, so we give symptomatic treatment and say it openly instead of suggesting a drug that ends a binge.
Within the ward's range. Benzodiazepines come off perversely: the first symptoms may appear only after two to seven days and last for weeks, which is why the dose is reduced gradually rather than overnight. An infusion containing a sedative may additionally mask the onset of those symptoms and lull everyone into false confidence. GHB and GBL form a separate risk category: the course can be severe, standard sedative treatment often does not suffice, and the picture changes within hours.
Outside any pattern. With legal highs and new psychoactive substances the starting point is ignorance, because the composition is swapped between batches and the same bag gives a different picture the second time. After cannabis products, in turn, the complaints are mainly psychological, so an intravenous infusion is not indicated here.
Why do we refer patients elsewhere with heroin and other opioids?
With heroin and other opioids our answer is no, and it does not come from a lack of equipment or from legal caution. Opioid craving itself, dramatic as it looks, rarely ends in death. What usually kills is what comes after it.
The mechanism is simple and well counted. A few days without the substance lowers tolerance, then the patient goes back to the dose their body was taking a week earlier, and that dose turns out to be lethal. Work by Strang et al. (BMJ 2003, PMID 12727768) and Merrall et al. (Addiction 2010, PMID 20579009) puts the rise in overdose death risk at three to eight times, peaking in the first two weeks after the break. An infusion lasting a dozen hours produces exactly that state, and then the patient is left alone with it, which is why instead of an infusion we point to substitution treatment.
On top of that comes the market in counterfeit tablets posing as painkillers. They may contain nitazenes, opioids often stronger than fentanyl, so the person taking them does not know their own dose even approximately. Anyone in that situation should be encouraged to talk to a doctor about naloxone nasal spray, which in Poland is issued on prescription.
How long does the infusion last: 3, 6 or 12 hours and what decides that?
The patient arrives at Górki 17A, goes through qualification and a measurement of vital signs, and is then connected to the infusion in a separate room. During the procedure staff monitor blood pressure and pulse. After it ends and after a period of observation the patient goes home, always with an accompanying person, and does not drive that day.
The three-hour option covers rehydration and basic symptomatic treatment. The six-hour one gives longer observation when the complaints are stronger. The twelve-hour one is meant for people after a long binge, physically run down, with several days of disturbed sleep.
We also give the same infusion with a home visit, at an address you provide, when the patient qualifies for outpatient detox but getting to Górki 17A is a real problem, for example after extreme exhaustion following a comedown or with no transport available. The qualification criteria and the list of exclusions stay identical to the in-clinic option then, and a wider range of procedure lengths is available: 1, 2, 3, 6 or 12 hours, which the medical staff match to the patient's condition. It is a separate item on the price list, at a different rate than a visit to the clinic, and we confirm its price and availability at booking.
An infusion after a stimulant comedown
This is the most common reason for a visit. The infusion shortens the day spent over a bowl, replaces fluids and makes sleep possible. It does not shorten the drug's action, does not remove craving and does not protect against going back to use a week later. This is symptomatic treatment, not an antidote.
What is in a detox infusion?
Let us start with what is not in that bottle: no preparation that would neutralise a drug, and no vitamin set taken from a regeneration menu. A detox infusion also has no single fixed recipe that could be printed in a price list.
The core is a rehydration fluid, because after several days of a binge the deficit of water and salts is often more serious than the withdrawal symptoms themselves. We replace electrolytes, mainly magnesium, potassium and sodium, and in cases of exhaustion we add glucose and B vitamins including thiamine. Symptomatic drugs, anti-emetic, painkilling, sedative or sleep-inducing, are given separately and only when the patient's condition calls for it.
The final choice belongs to the medical staff and is made after qualification, taking into account the substance used, chronic illnesses and the medicines the patient takes every day.
What do we check before the infusion and whom do we not accept?
Qualification runs in two stages and the first happens on the phone. We establish what was taken and in what amounts over recent days, whether alcohol was involved, whether the patient takes prescription drugs and whether there have been seizures or psychiatric treatment in the past. That conversation most often settles whether the visit makes sense at all.
The second stage is the clinic: measurement of blood pressure, pulse, oxygen saturation and temperature, assessment of consciousness and of the degree of dehydration. Only the result of both stages decides whether the infusion is connected.
A few answers close the way to an infusion, and we say so openly instead of looking for a middle option:
- heroin or other opioids as the leading substance, we point to substitution treatment,
- daily use of benzodiazepines or GHB, where a planned dose reduction under constant supervision is required,
- pregnancy, because withdrawal can endanger the child more than the mother and calls for a specialist team,
- seizures, delirium or confusion within the last few days,
- no sober adult to collect the patient and stay with them through the night.
To a family on the phone this often sounds like refusal. In practice it is the opposite, because a referral to the right place gives more than a visit that would not address the real risk.
When should you not book an infusion but seek help immediately?
There are situations in which waiting for an appointment is the wrong decision. Seizures, loss of consciousness, difficulty breathing, an irregular heartbeat, high fever with muscle rigidity, delirium or growing confusion require urgent care, not a drip at the clinic.
We treat announcements of taking one's own life during a comedown the same way. Two further risk-raising situations are worth naming separately: mixing a drug with alcohol, where two withdrawals overlap, and a condition worsening hour by hour in someone who cannot say what they took.
A short list is enough, because the boundary is sharp: the clinic deals with distressing complaints, not with saving lives.
Drug detox in Poznań: what the data say about access to help
For 2026 Poznań has budgeted PLN 95,000 for running an information and counselling point for people using drugs and new psychoactive substances, with an assumed result of 200 people covered by support (Municipal Programme for the Prevention and Resolution of Alcohol Problems and for Counteracting Drug Addiction, resolution of the Poznań City Council no. XXIX/526/IX/2025, table 20). Two hundred places a year in a city of this size shows how narrow the free entrance to the system can be.
More money goes to work in public space: PLN 275,000 for harm-reduction activities, with a planned 1,500 recipients, against PLN 175,000 a year earlier (ibid., table 21). The direction is clear, because people are reached where they are instead of waiting for them to come forward.
The regional background is set by the ESPAD survey of 2019, cited in the regional programme (resolution of the Sejmik of the Greater Poland Voivodeship no. XL/773/22, table 14). Among third-year secondary school students in Greater Poland 48.7 per cent had ever reached for marijuana against 37.2 per cent nationally, and 7.8 per cent for amphetamine against 4.7 per cent. The cohorts answering those questions then are in their twenties today, and they are the ones who most often call for an infusion.
