Drug & Alcohol Rehab For Liberty, Indiana

Liberty, Indiana, sits just a few miles west of the state border with Ohio. Serving as the seat of Union County, Liberty is home to 1,981 people. Perhaps best known for its historic courthouse, Liberty is one of just two incorporated towns in the county, the other being West College Corner (pop. 545). The town’s economy is primarily driven by manufacturing and retail, with a median household income of $79,500 per year. Not only is the median household income higher in Liberty than in the rest of Indiana (on average), but it also has a poverty rate of just 6.4%, compared to 12.3% statewide. [1]

Despite a strong economy and strategic position between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, the town of Liberty and the rest of Union County have battled substance abuse for years. Based on the most recent data, marijuana is the most commonly abused substance in Liberty, Indiana. The town also sees the abuse of other addictive substances, such as alcohol, prescription opioids, meth, cocaine, and heroin.

Continue reading to learn about substance abuse and addiction in Liberty, Indiana. And remember, if you or a loved one is fighting addiction in Liberty or the surrounding area, you can always reach out to Addiction Rehab Centers for help.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in Liberty

Liberty is a small town, but it makes up more than 27.9% of the county’s 7,087 residents. This matters because substance abuse data is collected and aggregated at the county level in Indiana. So data from small towns like Liberty and West College Corner, as well as unincorporated communities like Brownsville and Clifton, is all compiled together.

Aggregating local data makes it more challenging for researchers to know exactly where substance abuse cases, such as overdoses, arrests, and fatalities, originated. That said, Liberty accounts for more than 1 out of every 4 Union County residents, and by some estimates, it contributes more than half of all substance abuse cases recorded in the county. Consequently, we can confidently evaluate Union County’s data to examine the extent of the substance abuse crisis in Liberty alone.

Overdose fatalities in a small population are uncommon, and Union County is no exception. There have been fewer than 25 deaths recorded over the last 8 years in Union County. However, it’s still important to consider how many lives are taken by addictive substances in Liberty and the rest of Union County. Additionally, the number of overdose fatalities recorded in several recent years is well above average for the county’s small population. The table below shows how deaths involving all drugs (including alcohol) have changed in the county over the past few years. [2]

*Data for 2024 is provisional and may be subject to change. The last date that data was collected was 05/21/2025.

Between 2016 and 2018, annual overdose fatalities in Union County tripled from 2 to 6. However, fatalities returned to 2 per year for all years that followed except 2022, when they increased to 4. The data for 2024 is still provisional, so we only know that the county has recorded at least 1 but no more than 5 overdose fatalities for that year. While 2017, 2018, and 2022 saw death rates that are higher than average for the county population, most years with available data are more in line with data we’ve seen coming from similarly-sized counties.

In small populations like Liberty and Union County, non-fatal overdoses offer a better method of evaluating the severity of substance abuse. This is because there are roughly 50 non-fatal overdoses for every 1 fatal overdose, according to national data from the CDC. [3] Liberty and Union County also see more non-fatal overdoses than fatal overdoses each year, though not as many as would be expected based on the fatal overdose data. The table below shows the relevant overdose data in Union County between 2016 and 2024: [4]

*Data for 2024 is provisional and may be subject to change. The last date that data was collected was 05/21/2025.

The number of non-fatal overdoses per year in Union County is surprisingly low. While some years recorded more “average” figures, particularly 2017 and 2018, more than half of the years in the dataset recorded 5 or fewer non-fatal overdoses, and all but 2 years recorded 6 or fewer non-fatal overdoses.

On the surface, this would imply that the substance abuse crisis is being adequately managed and relatively few people are overdosing on drugs and alcohol. While this may be true in part, it’s important to examine the correlation between fatal overdoses, non-fatal overdoses, and total overdoses (fatal + non-fatal).

In 2016, Union County recorded 8 total overdoses, 2 of which were fatal (25%) and 6 of which were non-fatal (75%). In 2020, Union County recorded 7 total overdoses, 2 of which were fatal (28.5%) and 5 of which were non-fatal (71.5%). By 2023, the most recent year with finalized data, Union County recorded 8 total overdoses, 2 of which were fatal (25%) and 6 of which were non-fatal (75%). While this seems to indicate that the fatality rate is declining from peaks reached during the COVID-19 pandemic, the fatality rate is alarmingly high in Union County, as most other counties in Indiana record single-digit fatality rates each year.

Types of Substance Abuse in Liberty

In 2023 and 2024, marijuana was the most abused substance in Liberty and the rest of Union County. Marijuana and alcohol are both commonly abused throughout Indiana, though the latter is less common in Union County. Many rural areas, like Union County, also tend to see a higher occurrence of meth abuse, particularly in counties in southern Indiana.

Keep in mind that these trends are based on arrest and re-arrest data. That means that it doesn’t account for all instances of substance abuse — only those that involved an arrest. Many people abuse various substances without breaking the law or while evading arrest.

In any case, here is the latest data from Indiana’s Next Level Recovery program showing the arrests involving different kinds of addictive substances between 2016 and 2024 in Union County:

*Statistics for 2024 are still preliminary and do not account for the entire calendar year.

As you can see, alcohol arrests have declined dramatically since 2016 in Union County, even while the total arrests remained relatively constant. Over the same time period, marijuana arrests more than doubled, while meth arrests increased drastically starting in 2018. While cocaine arrests are relatively uncommon in Union County, opioid arrests are more common. Finally, drug paraphernalia arrests have varied with no consistent pattern, and these are most often linked to meth or heroin abuse.