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Addiction in Texas

In 2024, 4,980 Texans died of a drug overdose — a rate of 15.9 per 100,000 people, among the highest the state has recorded since tracking began in 1999 (CDC data, via USAFacts). Methamphetamine was involved in 42% of those deaths, more than any other drug.

Fentanyl is the sharpest edge of the crisis: the Texas Department of State Health Services counts more than 7,000 Texans killed by fentanyl between 2019 and 2023 — a rise of over 600% across those five years. The most recent state data shows deaths finally declining, but from a devastating peak.

Alcohol kills quietly alongside: an average of 13,701 Texans die each year from excessive alcohol use (CDC 2020–2021 averages, via NCDAS) — roughly three in ten of them women.

The treatment gap — and why it's wider for women

The single most important number on this page

In 2024, 52.6 million Americans needed treatment for a substance use disorder. Only 10.2 million received any — fewer than one in five (SAMHSA, 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health).

For women the gap is wider still. SAMHSA data analyzed by Penn State researchers found that fewer than 11% of women with a substance use disorder received treatment in 2019 — with stigma, childcare, and logistics compounding as barriers, hardest of all for single mothers.

And when a Texas mother does reach for residential help, the doors are few: the state has just 10 residential treatment centers statewide where women can live with their children during recovery (Texas HHSC, via the Hogg Foundation at UT Austin). UT Health San Antonio describes all 178 of Texas's rural counties as having limited or no access to opioid-addiction treatment resources.

Domestic violence and trafficking

One in three Texans will experience domestic violence in their lifetime (Texas Advocacy Project). In 2025, 50.92% of Texas domestic-violence survivors who sought shelter were denied for lack of space (Texas Council on Family Violence).

A 2016 University of Texas at Austin study, funded by the Criminal Justice Division of the Texas Governor's Office, estimated more than 313,000 victims of human trafficking in Texas — still the benchmark statewide estimate a decade later. Our guide to recognizing trafficking covers what those numbers look like in an ordinary community.

Homelessness among women

Nearly 28,000 Texans experienced homelessness on a single night in 2024 — up 18.2% since 2015, with 44% unsheltered (National Alliance to End Homelessness, from HUD Point-in-Time data). Nationally, 18 of every 10,000 women experienced homelessness in 2024, and homelessness among women rose faster than among men that year.

Much of women's homelessness never appears in those counts at all — the cars, couches, and dangerous relationships that hidden homelessness actually consists of.

What this looks like in North Texas

These aren't big-city numbers that fade out past the county line. Neighboring Johnson County recorded 26.6 overdose deaths per 100,000 people in 2024 — among the five highest rates in Texas, and well above the statewide 15.9 (CDC data, via USAFacts). Hood County sits inside the same regional pattern: rural enough to be a treatment desert, close enough to the Metroplex to inherit its supply.

"Granbury's homelessness is invisible. In a wealthy community, it does not look like shopping carts or street corners. It looks like a woman sleeping in her car. A woman couch-surfing from house to house. A woman in a tent by the river. A woman staying in a dangerous relationship because she has no other option." — Karen Kalinka, Mercy Manor board member

This is the need Mercy Manor was built for: a one-year, Christ-centered residential program in Granbury for women whose stories combine homelessness, abuse, and addiction — serving Hood County and the surrounding North Texas counties.

How we source this page

Every statistic above is drawn from a named government agency, university study, or established research nonprofit, verified against the original publication, and date-qualified. We do not use estimates we cannot trace to a primary source, and we retire figures when newer data supersedes them. Found an error, or a newer figure? Tell us — we'll fix it and credit you.