Drug & Alcohol Rehab For Plainfield, Indiana

Plainfield may not offer the bustling city life of nearby Indianapolis, but it does combine the comforts of small-town living with easy access to urban amenities. Located in Hendricks County, about half an hour southwest of downtown Indianapolis, Plainfield is a large town that falls within three distinct townships: Guilford, Liberty, and Washington. Plainfield boasts a population of 36,074, which brings it closer to many smaller cities in Indiana, despite maintaining its designation as a town. The town has also seen consistent growth over the past few decades, more than doubling in size since 1990.

Part of the reason that Plainfield continues to grow is the consistent supply of job opportunities, as well as the promise of high salaries and a relatively low cost of living. The median household income in Plainfield is $77,249, which is substantially higher than Indiana’s state median of $67,173. While houses are pretty affordable in Plainfield, rent is roughly 30% higher than the state average. The town also has a much lower poverty rate than the rest of Indiana — 6.8% compared to 12.6%. [1]

At first glance, you might think that Plainfield is the perfect place to live. While there are plenty of reasons that so many families call Plainfield home, there is also a growing epidemic taking place in this otherwise charming town. Substance abuse has been on the rise in Plainfield and the rest of Hendricks County for years, with numbers spiking during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alcohol, marijuana, and meth are among the most commonly abused drugs, though prescription opioids, cocaine, and heroin are not far behind.

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

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in Plainfield

Since Plainfield is a town within three other townships, it does not collect its own substance abuse data. Instead, like many towns and cities throughout Indiana, the town of Plainfield depends on county and state-level data collection. This means that Plainfield’s data is generally combined with the data from other nearby towns and cities throughout Hendricks County, including Avon and Danville. Nonetheless, the data provided by Hendricks County is invaluable when evaluating the current state of substance abuse in Plainfield.

Deaths reported via the Indiana NextLevel Recovery program indicate that substance abuse and addiction peaked during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hendricks County. [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.

Between 2016 and 2022, annual overdose deaths in Hendricks County increased by 30%. Hendricks County saw a brief decrease in overdose deaths in 2018 and 2019, but annual deaths surged to 52 in 2020. Since this peak, overdose deaths have declined, albeit slowly. It’s also important to note that the data for 2023 is still preliminary. So, while deaths are trending downward and that’s definitely a good sign, we can’t know for sure yet if the county will record fewer deaths in 2023 than it did in previous years.

It’s certainly promising that deaths appear to be in decline since the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are other important factors to consider as well. After all, deaths are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to addiction. Many people in Hendricks County abuse drugs or alcohol and escape death, perhaps even more than once. This is why it’s important to evaluate hospital discharge data related to drug and alcohol overdoses.

The table below shows the hospital discharges involving drug overdoses in Hendricks County between 2016 and 2023: [3]

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

The data pertaining to hospital discharges in Hendricks County follows a similar pattern; overdose cases were in decline in 2018 and 2019 before spiking in 2020 and 2021. Like overdose deaths, hospital discharges appear to be in decline, though the data for 2023 is still preliminary.

Types of Substance Abuse in Plainfield

As of 2023, marijuana and meth are the two most commonly abused drugs in Plainfield. 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 Hendricks County:

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

Arrests in Hendricks County have decreased substantially since 2016, though there was a temporary spike in 2021. This aligns with arrest records in many other parts of Indiana, as arrests often decreased while residents were sheltering in place in 2020. This meant fewer DUIs, as well as fewer arrests involving “party drugs” like cocaine. However, it’s important to note how drug and alcohol trends have evolved over the past 7 years.

Alcohol and drug paraphernalia arrests (the latter often linked with heroin abuse) declined drastically between 2016 and 2022, while cocaine arrests increased over the same period. It’s also important to recognize that, while marijuana and meth arrests generally declined, they accounted for a larger percentage of total arrests in 2022 than they did in 2016. Unlike many other counties in Indiana, Hendricks County has not seen a major increase in opioid arrests or opioid-attributable deaths. And while the data for 2023 is still preliminary, it appears that the most recent drug and alcohol arrest trends have not changed substantially from what’s been recorded in previous years.