Fort Worth Treatment Centers

Fort Worth, TX, is known by many as the original Wild West town. It has many Western-style attractions and even America's popular outlaws, Bonnie and Clyde, spent some time there. For many, the old West is not associated with extensive drug abuse. Rather, it conjures up images of chewing tobacco and Bourbon. However, Fort Worth has certainly not been able to escape the grips of substance abuse, and those substances also include tobacco and alcohol.

A Picture on Drug and Alcohol Abuse in Fort Worth

Of the 678,401 people who live in Fort Worth,

• 162,816 consume alcohol to levels classed as problematic.
• 63,091 use at least one illicit drug, and 9,968 of those also consume alcohol.
• The greatest drug threats in terms of numbers of users are cannabis (9,527), heroin (8,013), crack and powder cocaine (7,508), stimulants (4,858), and opiates other than heroin (2,019).
• The greatest drug threats in terms of numbers of emergency room admissions are prescription drugs (2,442, although this includes those who use the drug according to prescription), heroin (1,357), cocaine (610), meth (271), and ecstasy (136).

Public perception of the substance abuse problem in Fort Worth, however, is slightly different:

• 96% of people know someone in the city who uses cannabis.
• 57% of people believe cannabis should be available for medicinal purposes, a number far lower than that which is seen in many other parts of the country.
• 49% of people first use substances (drugs or alcohol) when they are aged between 18 and 25.
• 58% of people believe cocaine is easy to come by in the city, a figure that is at odds with the official main drug threats.
• 77% of people believe there is an increased problem with meth abuse.
• 89% of people believe there is an increased problem with prescription drug abuse.

Perhaps most important is the fact that 95% of people feel that the solution to address the substance abuse problem in Fort Worth is through better availability of treatment, including detox and rehab. City officials recognize that this is an area that needs to be focused on, while they also believe that they are responsible for creating an intervention to stop people from turning to drugs in the first place. With the majority of people first using drugs after they are over the age of 18, significant efforts have been made to integrate services with local colleges and institutions of higher education in an effort to create outreach programs to provide young people with healthier alternatives.

At the same time, people who already suffer from an addiction are encouraged to find treatment facilities that are available to them. These include medically assisted detox, inpatient and outpatient rehab, and significant aftercare. Some people believe that Fort Worth public health officials could and should do more. This is something that is being addressed through a variety of community-led initiatives focusing on education, counseling, therapy, support, outreach, testing, and treatment. It is hoped that this will turn the current statistics around.