Drug & Alcohol Rehab For Goshen Indiana

Goshen is a mid-sized city in Elkhart County, just a short drive southeast of Elkhart and South Bend. Even though the city of Elkhart was named after the county and boasts a larger population, Goshen serves as the county seat of Elkhart County. While Goshen has multiple colleges and institutes of higher education, it is primarily known as one of the largest RV manufacturers in the region. This has helped keep the economy in Goshen relatively stable for decades.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic definitely took its toll on the city of Goshen and its residents. Despite the fact that the population has continued to grow at a healthy rate (it currently rests at 34,375), the local economy contracted in 2020 and 2021. Today, the median household income falls well below the state average, while the city’s poverty rate is 15.6% — 3 percentage points higher than the rest of Indiana. [1]

The economic downturn combined with the proliferation of synthetic opioids like fentanyl has fueled the ongoing substance abuse crisis in Goshen and the rest of Elkhart County. Based on the most recent data, marijuana and meth are among the most commonly abused drugs in Goshen, though alcohol, prescription opioids, cocaine, and heroin are not far behind.

Continue reading to learn about substance abuse and addiction in Goshen, Indiana. If you or a loved one are fighting addiction in Goshen or the surrounding area, you can always reach out to Addiction Rehab Centers for help.

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in Goshen

Goshen’s substance abuse data is collected at the county level, which means that it’s combined with the data coming out of other towns and cities in the area — primarily Elkhart, Nappanee, and Middlebury. That said, Goshen accounts for approximately 17% of the county population, and by some estimates, it may contribute as much as 25% of the county’s substance abuse cases. For this reason, it’s still very useful to evaluate the county-level figures to better understand how addiction is affecting the residents of Goshen.

Analysts examine overdose deaths because they are both devastating to the community and reflective of the severity of a substance abuse crisis in a given city or county. In Elkhart County, there has not been a very clear trend in overdose deaths, though some of the worst years occurred during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, which aligns with many other counties throughout the state of Indiana. [2] The table below shows how deaths involving all drugs (including alcohol) have changed in the area over the past few years:

*Data for 2023 is provisional and only accounts for the first quarter of the year.

As you can see in the table above, overdose deaths technically declined from 23 in 2016 to 20 in 2023. However, the statistics for 2023 are still provisional, and the number of deaths rose dramatically in Elkhart County between 2020 and 2022. It’s also important to consider that no clear trend has evolved in Goshen or Elkhart County. For example, 2017 was one of the worst years for overdose deaths in the region, while 2019 saw far fewer deaths. Consequently, it’s difficult to say (using overdose deaths alone) whether the substance abuse crisis is improving or worsening.

Even if there were a clear trend happening with overdose deaths in Elkhart County, it’s still necessary to consider other statistics. One of the most important statistics to examine is non-lethal overdoses. This figure is generally calculated using data from hospitals and emergency departments that save and discharge overdose patients.

The table below shows the hospital discharges and emergency department visits involving overdoses in Elkhart County between 2016 and 2023: [3]

*Data for 2023 is provisional and only accounts for the first quarter of the year.

Ignoring the sudden drop in overdoses recorded in 2023, non-lethal overdoses increased by 6.7% between 2016 and 2022. These numbers echoed the data for overdose deaths, with 2017 being the worst year on record, followed closely by 2022. In general, overdoses increased substantially during the height of the pandemic, though non-lethal overdoses appear to be in decline in the years since. If this trend continues, Goshen and Elkhart County may see far fewer overdoses in 2024 and beyond.

Types of Substance Abuse in Goshen

In 2022, marijuana and meth were the most abused drugs on record in Elkhart County. The county also saw many instances of abuse involving multiple substances. These statistics can be partially ascertained by substance abuse arrest and re-arrest data. Here is the latest data from Indiana’s Next Level Recovery program showing the arrests involving different kinds of addictive substances between 2016 and 2023 in Elkhart County:

*Statistics for 2023 are still preliminary and do not account for the entire calendar year.

Arrests involving addictive substances in Elkhart County decreased dramatically from the peaks reached in 2018. Considering that Indiana was under a stay-at-home order for part of 2020 and many people voluntarily sequestered themselves throughout 2020, 2021, and even 2022, the sudden drop in arrests is not too surprising. This is because arrests involving DUIs and DWIs were less common.

In addition to the total arrests declining between 2016 and 2023, the types of drugs abused also changed over this period. Alcohol used to be the most common substance involved in Elkhart County arrests, but by 2023, marijuana took its place, followed closely by meth. It’s also important to note that drug paraphernalia arrests are quite high in Elkhart County; these can often be attributed to heroin, indicating that the drug is still frequently abused in Goshen and the surrounding area.