Rural drug and alcohol treatment

This article reviews the literature related to rural alcohol and drug treatment and presents data from the 1985 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse. Rural drug and alcohol treatment is largely ignored in the empirical literature. The limited literature is largely descriptive and focuses on needs for rural services. Rural services differ from urban services since providers offer a wider array of interventions which are more focused on outpatient services. Data from the National Household Survey analyzed for this paper indicate that drug use in rural areas is substantial. These data show the use of alcohol in rural areas does not differ from urban areas. However, findings from these analyses do support other studies which report that marijuana and cocaine use are at lower levels in 'truly' rural areas.