Zopiclone and Zolpidem Detox
Reducing zopiclone or zolpidem also means dealing with sleep, the reason you take the tablet and what happens at night when the plan becomes difficult to follow. At Abbington House, any reduction is assessed individually and forms part of a residential stay.
Zopiclone &Zolpidem Detox
You may not think of this as a detox. You’re trying to come off a tablet you take every night, but you’re worried about what’ll happen to your sleep.
The tablet had a job
Why there’s no standardreduction schedule
It’s understandable to want the tablet gone and the whole thing finished.
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doses, reduction steps or fixed schedules for coming off zopiclone. The plan depends on what you take, how long you’ve taken it and what’s happened when you’ve tried to reduce it before.
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shouldn’t usually be stopped suddenly after regular use. Current UK guidance recommends a gradual, step-by-step reduction agreed with the person taking it.
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at the start and then followed regardless of what happens. The prescriber can review how the reduction is going and slow it down, pause it or use smaller reductions if the effects become difficult to manage.
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other prescribed and non-prescribed medicines, alcohol or drug use, physical health, mental health and previous attempts to stop. All of that can affect what’s appropriate.
What happens to sleep
The biggest worry is usually what’ll happen to your sleep.
You probably already know what one night without the tablet is like. Watching the clock move through the small hours knowing you’ve got work in the morning. Taking half because you’re trying to make the prescription last, then wondering whether tonight’s the night it won’t be enough.
When a tablet has sat between being awake and being asleep for years, reducing it changes the part of the day you’ve organised everything else around.A plan that felt manageable at nine in the morning can feel very different at half past eleven at night.
Sleep can become more difficult during a reduction. It may be hard to tell how much of that is withdrawal and how much is the original sleep problem returning.
That’s why the plan needs to cover more than the dose. It also needs to look at what was affecting your sleep before the prescription began, what’s happening now and what support may help while the medicine is reduced.
Our guide to zopiclone withdrawal explains more about possible symptoms and timing.
If you’ve tried to come off before
A reduction at home still has to fit around everything else. There’s work the next morning. Children still wake early. The usual responsibilities don’t pause because the previous night went badly.
The tablet was helping you sleep. If your treatment only focuses on reducing it without addressing the sleep problem, you can find yourself facing the same choice late at night: take the tablet, or stay awake.
With work in six hours, it’s easy to see why somebody takes it again.
For plenty of people, reducing with their GP is enough. For others, each attempt reaches the same point. That may be a reason to look at whether the setting needs to change.
What zopiclone detox looks like at Abbington House
Abbington House is a CQC-regulated private residential rehab in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, for the treatment of drug addiction, alcohol addiction, and co-occurring mental health conditions.
Where detox is clinically needed, it’s medically supervised and arranged as part of the residential stay. We don’t offer zopiclone detox as a separate service where you leave as soon as the tablets have been dealt with.
Assessment happens before arrival. We ask what you’ve been taking, whether it was prescribed, how long you’ve taken it and what’s happened during previous reductions.
The nights matter with zopiclone. At Abbington House, staff are available 24 hours, so you’re not left to manage a difficult night alone.
The reduction takes place alongside therapy and the rest of the work involved in treatment. That includes looking at the sleep problem, what’s kept the tablet in place and anything else that’s made it difficult to reduce.
There’s a single fixed fee for the stay, covering detox where needed, therapy, family support and aftercare. The current figure is available on our rehab costs page.
You can also read about residential rehab and how we provide detox at Abbington House.
What if the reduction takes longer than the stay?
Most stays at Abbington House are around
although every admission is assessed individually.
A zopiclone reduction won’t always fit neatly within that time.
A reduction shouldn’t be hurried simply to reach zero before the end of the stay. If the assessment suggests that coming off completely may take longer, that needs to be discussed before admission.
The clinical team can establish what may be possible during the stay and whether part of the reduction would need to continue afterwards.
Our length-of-stay page explains how long people generally stay and why this differs from one person to another.
Common questions about coming off zopiclone
01 : Is coming off zopiclone the same as coming off a benzodiazepine?
No. Zopiclone and zolpidem are Z-drugs, not benzodiazepines.
There are similarities in the way dependence and withdrawal are managed. Current UK guidance includes both groups of medicines and recommends an individual, gradual reduction rather than suddenly stopping after regular use.
The actual plan still depends on the medicine, dose, length of use and the person taking it. They shouldn’t be treated as interchangeable.
02 : My GP is already reducing my prescription. Do I need to come in?
Sometimes, no. If you and your GP have a plan and it’s working, residential treatment doesn’t need to be added simply because it’s available.
It may be worth a conversation if the reduction keeps breaking down, previous attempts have reached the same point or there’s more happening around the prescription than the prescription itself.
The question is what a residential stay would add in your circumstances. Our guide to whether you need rehab or detox can help you think that through.
03 : Will I be given something else to help me sleep?
Not automatically. Replacing zopiclone with another sleeping tablet isn’t a standard answer to withdrawal. Any medicine considered during the stay would need to be reviewed individually, including its benefits, risks and how it fits with the rest of the reduction plan.
The assessment also looks at the reason you weren’t sleeping before zopiclone was prescribed. Support for sleep needs to deal with that as well as the medicine itself.
04 : I only take one tablet a night. Is this even a problem?
One tablet doesn’t tell us enough to answer that. Taking one prescribed tablet each night is different from taking more than prescribed or getting additional tablets elsewhere. Those situations wouldn’t be treated as though they were the same.
We’d ask what happens when you take less, how long you’ve been taking it and whether your current reduction plan is working.
Talking things through
If you’re trying to work out whether residential treatment would add anything, you can call Abbington House on 01438 583222.
We’ll ask what you’ve been taking, how long you’ve taken it and what happened when you last tried to stop or reduce it. From there, we can discuss whether treatment here may be appropriate.
Sometimes the answer will be that it isn’t. We’ll tell you that.
You can also read about how admission to Abbington House works before you call.
Michael Williams is the Treatment Manager at Abbington House and has been in recovery since 2011.