Drug & Alcohol Rehab For Rensselaer, Indiana

Settled along the Iroquois River in northwestern Indiana, Rensselaer is a small city residing within the Marion Township of Jasper County. Many students call Rensselaer home, as Saint Joseph’s College is located just south of the city center. As the seat of Jasper County, the city of Rensselaer, Indiana is a strong economic hub in the region, with the foundation of the local and regional economy based in manufacturing.

According to the latest census data, the median household income in Rensselaer is $61,648. While this does fall below the state median of $70,051, it is relatively high for a city of Rensselaer’s size. Additionally, the city boasts a surprisingly low poverty rate — just 7.5%, compared to 12.3% statewide. [1]

Despite the city’s beautiful surroundings and economic prosperity, Rensselaer has struggled with a silent killer for years: substance abuse. With a population of just 5,684, hundreds of individuals and families in Rensselaer grapple with addiction every single day. Based on the most recent data, alcohol and meth are the two most commonly abused substances in Rensselaer, Indiana. The city also sees the abuse of other addictive substances, such as marijuana, prescription opioids, cocaine, and heroin.

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

Drug and Alcohol Addiction in Rensselaer

Rensselaer accounts for approximately 17.2% of Jasper County’s population. However, it is the only incorporated city in the county and has the largest population of any municipality within the county limits. This data matters because Rensselaer, like nearly all cities in the state of Indiana, leaves the task of substance abuse data collection to county-level administrators. This also means that substance abuse cases originating in the city of Rensselaer are combined with other designated places in the county, such as De Motte (pop. 4,168) and Roselawn (pop. 4,132). As a result, the data we evaluate from Jasper County does not perfectly reflect the state of the current substance abuse crisis in the city of Rensselaer alone. However, it does provide the most helpful overview of addiction in Rensselaer and the surrounding area. 

Since Rensselaer is not a large city like Indianapolis or Fort Wayne, it records relatively few overdose deaths. As an average-sized county, Jasper County records a slightly higher number than smaller counties, but not by a wide margin. Nonetheless, it’s important to examine the number of fatal overdoses recorded in Jasper County and determine how this data has changed over time. The table below shows how deaths involving all drugs (including alcohol) have changed in the county over the past few years. [2]

*Data for 2023 and 2024 is provisional and may be subject to change. The last date that data was collected was 09/04/2024.

Between 2016 and 2020, fatal overdoses hovered in a relatively consistent pattern, with just 4 deaths occurring in 2018. All other years during this period recorded 7 to 8 fatal overdoses. However, this trend was upended in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when fatal overdoses jumped to 13 in Jasper County. This lines up with the numbers we’ve seen in many other Indiana counties, which saw a sharp spike in overdose deaths in 2020 and 2021. And, also like many other counties in the state, the number of fatal overdoses has since declined. While the data for 2023 and 2024 is still provisional, it indicates that the total number of fatal overdoses is in decline since the heights reached in 2021.

Needless to say, fatal overdoses are a vital piece of data to consider when analyzing the severity of a substance abuse crisis. However, non-fatal overdoses are just as important, and they are far more common. This is especially true for low-density populations like Rensselaer and (to a lesser degree) the rest of Jasper County. In many cases, non-fatal overdoses are also easier to calculate with near 100% accuracy, as they can be collected via hospital discharges and emergency department visits involving addictive substances. The table below shows the relevant overdose data in Jasper County between 2016 and 2024: [3]

*Data for 2023 and 2024 is provisional and may be subject to change. The last date that data was collected was 09/04/2024.

The data for non-fatal overdoses did not follow the same pattern as the data for fatal overdoses in Jasper County. In fact, Between 2016 and 2020, non-fatal overdoses declined by 29.3%. Non-fatal overdoses hovered between 65 and 77 per year during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the data recorded a sudden increase in 2023. Though the data is still provisional, it’s surprising that the number of non-fatal overdoses suddenly increased to pre-pandemic levels in 2023. And, with so few overdoses recorded in 2024, it’s difficult to know just how different the finalized data for 2023 and 2024 will be.

Regardless of the sudden shift in non-fatal overdoses in 2023, it’s important to look at the relationship between fatal overdoses, non-fatal overdoses, and total overdoses (fatal plus non-fatal). In 2016, there were 99 total overdoses in Jasper County. Just over 7% of these overdoses were fatal. By 2022, there were 76 total overdoses in Jasper County. Roughly 10.5% of those overdoses were fatal. This indicates that despite the overall decline in overdoses, the rate of fatal overdoses is rising (albeit by a small margin) in Rensselaer and the rest of Jasper County.

Types of Substance Abuse in Rensselaer

In 2023, 2024, and the beginning of 2025, alcohol and meth were the most abused substances in Jasper County. This data is consistent with Indiana as a whole, where alcohol is the most abused substance, followed by meth and marijuana. It’s important that we are transparent about how this data is measured, as it doesn’t reflect precise case-by-case usage. Instead, we use the arrest and re-arrest records involving addictive substances to estimate the prevalence of different types of substance abuse in Rensselaer and the surrounding area.

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 Jasper County:

*Statistics for 2023 and 2024 are still preliminary and do not account for the entire calendar year(s).

While total arrests involving addictive substances have declined between 2016 and 2022 (excluding the years with provisional data for the moment), alcohol arrests have declined at a much faster rate. Alcohol used to account for the vast majority of arrests in Jasper County, and while alcohol is still the most abused substance in the county, the proliferation of other drugs and substances is slowly overtaking alcohol.

Meth, for example, has resulted in an increasing number of arrests each year, becoming the second most abused substance in the county. While cocaine and prescription opioids are not very prevalent and have not seen any major shifts over the years, marijuana has remained consistently prevalent based on arrest records alone, making it the third most abused substance in Jasper County. Lastly, arrests involving drug paraphernalia have increased steadily over the years in Jasper County, and these arrests are most often associated with meth and heroin abuse.