Texas Addiction Treatment and Info

Drug and substance abuse qualifies, by all metrics, as a worldwide problem. It is an epidemic that has consistently claimed more lives than any other scourge. The U.S has had greater struggles with drugs compared to other countries. Of course, with Texas being so massive, and with everything being bigger in Texas, the state's drug woes blow those of many states out the water. With more than 28.7 million residents, it is not surprising in the slightest that the state has experienced high rates of drug and alcohol abuse over the past several decades. It doesn't help that Mexico is in close proximity to the state, making it easier for Mexican drug cartels to infiltrate the porous border and smuggle in drugs.

Addiction in Texas

Texas, the Lone Star State, is a giant of a state. And Texans are known for their large, welcoming hearts. "Friendship" is the state's motto, and the people of Texas live by that motto.

Texas is a state of superlatives. It leads the nation in total productivity. It is the leading oil producer in the nation. More beef is produced in Texas than in any other state. It is still the nation's largest cotton producer. Texas is a giant in the space industry, and is a major player in high technology.

As the saying goes, everything is bigger in Texas, and the state's substance abuse rates are no exception. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, over 35,000 people were enrolled in a publicly funded drug or alcohol addiction treatment program in Texas in a single-day count in 2015. While most people who entered an inpatient drug or alcohol rehab center in Texas were seeking treatment for alcohol abuse, this was closely followed by opioid abuse.

People admitted to publicly funded rehab programs in Texas in 2013 cited the following primary dependencies:

• Alcohol: 28 percent
• Opioids: 24 percent
• Marijuana: 23 percent
• Methamphetamines: 13 percent
• Cocaine: 11 percent

Commonly Abused Substances in Texas

There are numerous substances used and abused in the state of Texas. However, some of these are admittedly more prevalently abused than others. The information that follows highlights the most common drugs here:

1. Methamphetamine

Drug Enforcement Agency agents have long considered methamphetamines to be a huge threat in Texas. In the year 2016, meth led to a total of 715 fatalities, a number which is expected to grow by 2020. This toll has already outpaced heroin, a drug that claimed 539 lives in Texas in 2016.

Home meth labs decreased after a successful nationwide crackdown on the ingredients which are used to make meth. Unfortunately, this has only encouraged foreign sellers to make more of the drug and funnel it into the state. They are also able to produce nearly pure meth at a cheaper rate, and they have succeeded in flooding the market.

Much of the methamphetamine coming into Texas is predictably from nearby Mexico. DEA agents report that meth seizures at the Texas-Mexico border increased by 103% from 2014 to 2016.

As meth continues to claim more and more lives in the state of Texas, admission to addiction treatment facilities due to the drug rose to 17% of rehab admissions in the year 2016. Meth is also linked to the recent rise in the rates of HIV transmission.

2. Alcohol

Despite the increasing rates of methamphetamine abuse in Texas, alcohol still stands as the most widely used and abused drug in the state. According to a report which detailed the drug trends of Texas, 58% of Texas high school students in grades 7-12 had used or abused alcohol. 25% had drunk alcohol in the previous month. Of particular concern among this age group, is the practice of quickly consuming massive quantities of alcohol in a single session or binge drinking.

Texas has also reported one of the highest rates of drunk-driving fatalities in the nation. Driving under the influence accounted for 38 percent of all traffic deaths in 2017.

3. Opioids

While Texas has not seen a similar spate of overdose deaths that the Northeast has, research from the University of Texas theorizes that this is partly due to the type of drugs most readily available in the state.

It has become increasingly common to lace heroin with Fentanyl. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid which is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine and is a major contributor to the recent spike in opioid overdose deaths across the country. Black tar heroin from Mexico is also widely available in Texas, but it's not easy to mix with Fentanyl.

Despite lower-than-average numbers of opioid-related fatalities, the state is still being significantly impacted by the opioid blight. Physicians wrote over 15.9 million prescriptions for painkillers in the state in 2015 alone. This increasingly large number of prescriptions has made painkillers easily accessible in communities throughout the state. In 2016, the deadliest year on record for the opioid crisis, Texas saw a 7.4% increase in overdose deaths.

4. Cocaine

Cocaine is readily available throughout the entire state. After marijuana, cocaine ranked as the second most abused drug among those seeking addiction treatment. Cocaine/crack is available in all quantities, from a gram all the way to a kilogram.

Admissions for cocaine use were down from the 2005 reports, with exactly 4,808 people being admitted for smoking powdered cocaine. An additional 7,904 people were admitted for crack cocaine addiction in 2009. Texas ranks among the highest states for 12-17 year olds using cocaine.

5. Heroin

The Proceedings of the Community Epidemiology Work Group of 2014 stated that heroin indicators indicated a growing heroin issue in Texas, especially among teenagers and young adults. Mexican black tar and powered brown heroin are the most prevalent forms of heroin on the street. The number of substance abuse treatment admissions for heroin abuse among those under 30 rose from 40% in 2005 to 52 % in 2013.

6. Prescription Drugs

The Texas Department of State Health Services data on treatment admissions showed that in 2013, 12% of all treatment admissions involved the non-medical use of prescription drugs. In a Texas House Committee on Public Health, Interim Report 2014, it was noted that there was a 78% increase in the mortality rate from overdoses for opiate abuse between 1999 and 2010.

7. Marijuana

The number of arrests in Texas for possession and sales during 2008-2012 fluctuated between 70,360 rising significantly in 2009 to 76,946 and then decreasing slightly to 72,562 in 2012. Texas is one of the top states prosecuting marijuana possession as a drug crime.

Drug Related Injuries and Fatalities in Texas

In the 2010 Texas Non-Index Crimes, there were 14,639 arrests for illegal drug sale and manufacturing. Another 125,974 individuals were arrested for drug possession. In the year 2013, Texans witnessed 1,337 deaths caused by drunk driving. There were 99,195 arrests for driving under the influence.

The third leading cause of injury-related death in Texas is due to drug overdose, according to the Drug Policy Organization. As of the year 2009, there were at least 58 drug courts in Texas. 57% of federally sentenced defendants in Texas involved marijuana.

During 2007, the DEA made 2,812 drug arrests in Texas. In 2008, the figures were more extreme with a total of 144,953 drug related arrests (selling, manufacturing, possession) occurring in Texas. In 2007, there were 2,343 people who died as result of drug use compared to 3,800 who died in motor vehicle accidents and another 2,561 who died from firearm incidents.

Addiction Prevention in Texas

Texas has made several efforts designed to curb the growing rates of substance abuse among the locals. With methamphetamine and black-tar heroin leading to a steady spate of overdoses and fatalities, the state has taken upon itself to make concerted moves aimed at suppressing substance abuse. Here is the most prominent example of the same:

1) Grants geared toward fighting the drug epidemic

In May of 2017, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission announced that Texas received a $24.7 million grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to combat the opioid epidemic. These funds will directly help 14,000 Texans over the course of two years.

Texas is using the grant money in the following ways:

• Expanding access to opioid treatment sites across the state
• Increasing training and technical assistance to opioid prescribers and providers
• Enhancing recovery services and peer-to-peer support groups
• Boosting outreach activities with state agency partners, crisis teams, outreach workers and peer re-entry programs

Efforts are focused on populations most at risk for opioid use disorder, including:

• Veterans
• Chronic pain patients
• Pregnant women
• Those with a history of prescription drug abuse
• Individuals living in major metropolitan areas or rural areas with a high rate of opioid abuse

Addiction Treatment in Texas

In addition to the preventative programs in place, the state has a vast variety of addiction treatment and rehab programs available. These programs offer unique and highly personalized recovery services to admitted clients.

SAMHSA's TEDS 2014 report on Texas revealed that 5,810 individuals sought alcohol only addiction treatment. Another 4,856 individuals in Texas entered treatment for alcohol with a secondary drug problem.

The Federal government's Behavioral Health Barometers for Texas 2009-2014 showed that the percentage of alcohol dependence or abuse among people 12 and older was the same as the national average. That equates to 1.4 million individuals a year.

Alcohol remains the primary drug of abuse in Texas. In 2013, excessive alcohol use cost Texas over $16.5 billion dollars. In the year 2014, the largest group of individuals that were involved as drunk drivers in fatal crashes was the 21-25 year old group.

Some of the services that you may expect when you are enrolled any one of these programs include, but are not limited to:

• Aftercare programs
• Alumni programs
• Detox programs
• Inpatient programs
• Intensive outpatient programs
• Intervention services
• Outpatient programs
• Sober living homes

Consider the following categories of substance abuse treatment and rehab services that are available in Texas:

i) Intervention Services

A professional interventionist attends to persons who are close to the person experiencing addiction in a bid to design an intervention. An intervention outlines the toll that drug abuse has taken on the addicted person and those who love and look out for them. It outlines an appropriate plan of treatment, with the ultimate objective of motivating them to actively seek assistance.

ii) Inpatient Addiction Treatment

After a person has completed any necessary detox, it's time to address the psychological and behavioral aspects of addiction in an inpatient drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.

Texas inpatient drug rehab programs offer a residential setting and intensive therapies that help a person address the social, mental, emotional and even spiritual impact of addiction. These tailored therapies help a person to adopt the relapse-prevention and sober-living skills that work best for their needs.

iii) Outpatient Addiction Treatment

While the traditional outpatient and intensive outpatient programs effectively provide standalone services for dependency treatment, these programs tend to be more valuable when they are used to support inpatient rehab.

In this capacity, outpatient programs may help a person to adjust to sobriety after receiving treatment. As a step-down service, the outpatient programs assist the person to successfully adjust to changes in lifestyle which are associated with sobriety

iv) Medical Detox

Without professional help and medical support, withdrawal symptoms and cravings may push an addicted person to relapsing. A medical detoxification program provides round the clock medical support as the person's body works on healing. This treatment helps to protect a person from relapsing and it prepares them for the very next stage of treatment.

To help a person so that he or she is more comfortable and to minimize or even prevent withdrawal symptoms and cravings, the appropriate medications may be administered as is needed.

Regardless of the drug rehab type you choose, there is a high probability that you will find the following therapy kinds in place at the addiction recovery facility of your choice:

• 12-step and non-12 support groups
• Addiction education
• Cognitive behavioral therapy
• Complementary therapies, including equine therapy, yoga, meditation, biofeedback, massage therapy, and journaling
• Coping techniques
• Couples counseling
• Dialectical behavior therapy
• Exercise therapy
• External support groups
• Family therapy
• Group therapy meetings
• Individual counseling
• Life skills training
• Nutritional therapy
• Relapse prevention
• Stress management
• Vocational training

Getting Help

It is paramount that you get assistance as fast as possible once you realize that you are suffering from addiction. The earlier you access a Texas rehab program and begin treatment, the higher your chances of completely readjusting to sobriety and normal function are.

CITATIONS

https://afmc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/OADAP_SEOW-2017-State-Report-Book_v3.3PRINT.pdf

https://www.carnevaleassociates.com/our-work/emerging-drug-trends-prevention-issue-brief.html

https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/DIR-032-18%202018%20NDTA%20final%20low%20resolution.pdf

https://www.getsmartaboutdrugs.gov/news-statistics/emerging-drug-trends

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234579/

https://www.shadac.org/publications/50-state-analysis-drug-overdose-trends-evolving-opioid-crisis-across-states

https://www.unodc.org/documents/wdr/WDR_2010/2.0_Drug_statistics_and_Trends.pdf

https://novarecoverycenter.com/drug-use/what-are-the-most-common-addictions-in-texas-2/

https://archives.drugabuse.gov/sites/default/files/texas2014a.pdf

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/docs/state_profile_-_texas_0.pdf

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