Withdrawal length depends entirely on the substance involved, but most acute physical symptoms resolve within one to four weeks. Some substances, like alcohol, produce intense symptoms that peak within days, while others cause milder but longer-lasting effects stretching over several weeks. Beyond the acute phase, a secondary wave of psychological symptoms can persist for months. Here’s what to expect for the most common substances.
Alcohol: 2 to 7 Days for Most People
Alcohol withdrawal moves fast. Tremors and shakes typically begin within 5 to 10 hours of your last drink and peak at 24 to 48 hours. Hallucinations, if they occur, usually start within 12 to 24 hours and can last up to two days. Seizures are possible between 6 and 48 hours after the last drink, with the highest risk at around 24 hours.
The most dangerous phase is delirium tremens, a severe reaction involving confusion, rapid heartbeat, and fever. It commonly begins two to three days after the last drink but can be delayed by more than a week. Its peak intensity hits around four to five days. Most people with mild to moderate alcohol dependence feel significantly better within a week, but delirium tremens requires medical supervision because it can be life-threatening without treatment.
Opioids: 5 to 10 Days
The timeline for opioid withdrawal splits along one key factor: whether you were using a short-acting or long-acting opioid. With short-acting opioids like heroin, physical symptoms start 6 to 12 hours after the last dose and last roughly five days. You’ll feel the worst around days two and three, with muscle aches, nausea, sweating, and intense restlessness.
Long-acting opioids like methadone produce a slower onset but a longer withdrawal. Symptoms may not start for a day or more, and the whole process can stretch to 10 days or beyond. The experience is often described as less sharp but more drawn out. Either way, opioid withdrawal is extremely uncomfortable but rarely life-threatening on its own.
Benzodiazepines: 5 Days to Several Months
Benzodiazepine withdrawal is one of the more variable and potentially dangerous forms. Acute symptoms generally last 5 to 28 days, though some people experience symptoms for several months. The timeline depends heavily on which drug you were taking. Short-acting benzodiazepines produce faster-onset withdrawal, while long-acting ones cause a slower, more gradual process.
Early withdrawal often involves “rebound” symptoms, meaning the anxiety or insomnia the medication was treating comes back intensely. This can make it hard to distinguish withdrawal from a return of the original condition. Because of seizure risk and the prolonged timeline, benzodiazepine withdrawal is almost always managed with a slow, gradual taper rather than abrupt stopping.
Nicotine: 2 to 4 Weeks
Nicotine withdrawal is fast-moving. Symptoms like irritability, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, and increased appetite peak on the second or third day after quitting. That 48-to-72-hour window is when most people feel the strongest pull to start using again.
Physical symptoms generally ease within two to four weeks. Cravings can linger longer, especially in situations you associate with smoking or vaping, but their intensity and frequency drop steadily over time.
Cannabis: 1 to 3 Weeks
Heavy, long-term cannabis users can experience real withdrawal symptoms, though they’re milder than those from alcohol or opioids. Irritability, sleep problems, decreased appetite, and restlessness typically begin within 24 to 48 hours of stopping. Severity peaks around day three.
Most symptoms resolve within two weeks. People who used cannabis very frequently may have certain symptoms, particularly sleep disruption and irritability, that linger for three weeks or more.
Stimulants: Days to Weeks
Withdrawal from stimulants like cocaine or amphetamines follows a different pattern than depressants. After a binge, you’ll hit a “crash” period marked by depression, anxiety, agitation, and strong cravings. This initial crash can last a few days and often involves sleeping for extended periods.
An intermediate phase follows, bringing fatigue, low energy, and a flat, disengaged feeling that can last one to two weeks. After that, a late phase can stretch for weeks or months, characterized by brief but intense episodes of craving triggered by people, places, or situations connected to past use. Stimulant withdrawal is more psychological than physical, but the depression during the crash phase can be severe.
Antidepressants: Days to Over a Month
Stopping antidepressants, particularly SSRIs, can cause discontinuation symptoms that emerge within days to weeks. These include dizziness, nausea, “brain zaps” (brief electric-shock sensations), and flu-like feelings. Shorter-acting antidepressants are more likely to cause noticeable symptoms.
For most people, these symptoms resolve within a few weeks as the body readjusts. If symptoms persist and worsen past the one-month mark, it may signal a return of the underlying depression rather than ongoing withdrawal. A gradual taper over weeks to months, sometimes switching to a longer-acting medication first, is the standard approach to minimize these effects.
Post-Acute Withdrawal: The Longer Phase
After acute withdrawal ends, many people enter a phase called post-acute withdrawal syndrome, or PAWS. This is a set of psychological and cognitive symptoms that can surface weeks after the last dose and persist for 6 to 24 months. It affects people recovering from alcohol, opioids, benzodiazepines, and stimulants.
PAWS symptoms include difficulty thinking clearly, short-term memory problems, emotional overreactions or numbness, unpredictable mood swings, sleep disturbances, and heightened sensitivity to stress. These symptoms tend to come in waves rather than staying constant. Stress makes them worse, which creates a frustrating cycle: the symptoms increase your stress, and the stress intensifies the symptoms.
The underlying cause is that chronic substance use changes brain chemistry at a molecular and cellular level, and these changes persist well after the substance itself has cleared your system. Recovery from PAWS is gradual, and most people see steady improvement over months. Understanding that these symptoms are a normal part of recovery, not a sign of failure, makes a significant difference in getting through them.
What Affects Your Timeline
Two people using the same substance can have very different withdrawal experiences. The biggest factors are how long you used, how much you used, and the specific substance’s properties (particularly its half-life, which determines how quickly it leaves your body). Shorter-acting substances tend to produce faster, more intense withdrawal, while longer-acting ones produce a more gradual process.
Your overall health matters too. Liver function affects how quickly your body clears a substance. Age, nutrition, hydration, and whether you’re using multiple substances simultaneously all influence both the severity and duration. People who have gone through withdrawal before sometimes experience a “kindling” effect, where each subsequent withdrawal becomes more intense than the last, particularly with alcohol and benzodiazepines.