Alcohol and Drug Services (ADS)

About Alcohol and Drug Services (ADS)

Alcohol and Drug Services (ADS) is a nonprofit, United Way-supported agency in Greensboro, North Carolina, that has offered outpatient addiction treatment, prevention, and early intervention services across the Piedmont Triad for more than 50 years. They see addiction as a treatable brain disease and recovery as a lifelong process, with abstinence as the goal and clients taking an active part in shaping their own treatment plans. Their care for adults with substance use disorders includes basic outpatient counseling, an intensive outpatient program (IOP), and an opioid treatment program. Group therapy is the core of treatment, supported by individual counseling sessions.

The IOP runs for up to 12 weeks, with groups meeting three times a week, individual sessions at least weekly, and random drug testing throughout. It draws on the Matrix Model, and topics range from relapse warning signs and emotional triggers to rebuilding relationships and handling guilt and shame. Staff also use cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, and relapse prevention, and psychiatric evaluation and medication management are available for co-occurring conditions such as depression. ADS opened the Triad’s first opioid treatment program in 1978, and today they pair methadone or buprenorphine, along with options like Sublocade and Vivitrol, with counseling in a phased structure; pregnant women and people who inject drugs receive priority admission, and a sliding fee scale means no one is turned away for inability to pay.