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Treatment Programs
Looking for help with addiction in Austin, TX?
2301 Avenue J Arlington, Texas 76006
1011 North Cooper Street Arlington, Texas 76011
7510 Farm to Market Road 1886, Azle, TX 76020
5372 Fredericksburg Road, San Antonio, TX 78229
7229 Hawkins View Drive, Fort Worth, TX 76132
7400 Blanco Road, Suite 129 San Antonio, Texas 78216
214 Billings Street, 240, Arlington, TX 76010
1900 Wyoming Avenue El Paso, Texas 79903
1651 Rock Prairie Road, Suite 101 College Station, Texas 77845
14109 Farm to Market 969, Austin, TX 78724
1626 Medical Center Street El Paso, Texas 79902
6960 Dick Price Road, Mansfield, TX 76063
1050 North Westmoreland Road, Suite 330, Dallas, TX 75211
4800 Memorial Drive, Waco, TX 76711
2018 Evans Avenue Fort Worth, Texas 76104
Austin is the largest treatment market in Central Texas, and our directory lists 40 treatment centers within the city. The city itself offers outpatient and clinical services, whereas counseling practices, opioid treatment programs, intensive outpatient tracks and hospital-affiliated care are spread across the central neighborhoods and the eastern side.
The residential programs tell a different story. Very few of them sit in Austin proper. Instead, they ring the metro at a distance, typically on ranch properties with room for them: south toward Buda, east through Manor and Elgin and west into the Hill Country around Spicewood and Wimberley.
Between them sit the northern suburbs, where Round Rock, Cedar Park and Georgetown offer hospital plazas, a veterans clinic and community counseling along the Interstate 35 corridor.
That is why an Austin search returns addresses in towns you may never have heard of. A ranch outside Elgin and a clinic in Round Rock are both part of how someone in Austin actually gets care, and many people use both in sequence, starting outside the city and stepping back into an outpatient schedule in town.
There is a wrinkle here that trips people up, so it is worth getting straight. Travis County’s local mental health authority is Integral Care. Its round-the-clock line is 512-472-4357 and that is the number most Austin searches surface.
But the state’s own screening and referral program, OSAR, is contracted to a different organization for this region: Bluebonnet Trails Community Services, based in Round Rock, covers Travis County as part of Region 7. OSAR can be reached at 844-309-6385. OSAR screening is free to any Texas resident, and the counselor refers rather than treats. If one number does not get you where you need to go, try the other. For a crisis at any hour, call 988.
Nothing requires you to go through either. Texas has no county approval step, so you can reach out to a program on your own and request an assessment. To check one out, the Health and Human Services Commission publishes a searchable list of the facilities it licenses, and a second list of faith-based programs, which are non-medical and sit outside the licensing system.
A program absent from one list may sit on the other. Counselors hold their own credentials, so asking who on staff is licensed should be one of your first questions.
Austin holds nearly every level of care except the residential tier. Recovery housing sits outside licensing entirely, though a 2023 statute set up voluntary accreditation. Certified homes appear in a public directory run by the Texas Recovery Oriented Housing Network, which also handles grievances. That statute forbids a certified house from paying for referrals or claiming accreditation it has not earned. Look a house up rather than taking its word.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) sits about seven and a half miles southeast of downtown, a 15 to 25 minute drive in ordinary traffic. Many residential programs collect an arriving client, which matters more here because the program may be forty minutes further out. Ask admissions before booking how long the transfer takes.
Driving, everything hangs off Interstate 35, the north-south spine and the source of most of the congestion. MoPac, signed as Loop 1, runs parallel to the west and is the alternative most locals use. US-183 and State Highway 71, called Ben White Boulevard where it crosses the south side, carry the airport approaches, and US-290 runs east to west.
Transit is thinner than a city this size suggests. CapMetro’s MetroRail Red Line is the only rail, running 32 miles from Leander through the northwestern suburbs into downtown across ten stations, and it does not serve the airport. MetroRapid covers the North Lamar and South Congress corridor and the Burnet and South Lamar corridor. Route 20 links the airport to downtown and the university roughly every 15 to 30 minutes, seven days a week.
If you are planning an outpatient schedule without a car, a program on one of those corridors is realistic; however, a program in the suburbs generally is not. CapMetro is midway through a network-wide redesign, so confirm current routes before you rely on one.
Heat organizes the year here. Camp Mabry, Austin’s official weather station, averages 123 days a year at or above 90 degrees on the 1991 to 2020 normals, and 29 of those reach 100. The normal August high is just under 98, though 2023 produced ten consecutive days at 105 or above, a record.
For a stay of a month or more between May and September, outdoor programming happens before about half past eight in the morning or after seven in the evening, with very little in between. Pack light, with a hat and something to carry water. Winters are mild and outdoor schedules run normally.
What Austin does have is water, which is the local answer to the heat. Lady Bird Lake cuts across the city, with the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail looping around it. It is flat and shaded in parts and cooled by a breeze off the water, which keeps it usable into the evening when the trails elsewhere are not.
The Barton Creek Greenbelt offers miles of creekside walking with swimming holes along it, which is more manageable in August than any exposed ridge route. Barton Springs Pool is spring-fed and remains at about 68 to 70 degrees all year. Programs in the central and south parts of the city build these into the week; ask what the warm-weather schedule looks like.
The step-down is the thing Austin does well. Because much of the residential capacity sits outside the city and so much of the outpatient capacity sits inside it, moving from one to the other is the normal path rather than an unusual one, and it happens without leaving the region or changing the referral network.
The OSAR line and the state housing directory cover the whole region, so moving from a Hill Country program into south Austin does not restart the search.
If your person has gone into a program outside the city, plan travel around the program rather than around Austin. Most residential programs restrict contact for the first week or two and then set visiting hours or family weekends. Ask admissions for the family policy and any family programming dates before booking anything.
Where to stay depends entirely on the program’s location. For example, a Hill Country program, a ranch east toward Manor and a clinic in Round Rock are three different drives, so choosing lodging near the program rather than near downtown will save hours over a weekend. A rental car is close to essential for a visiting family.
Between visits, the Lady Bird Lake loop and Zilker Park are the easiest places in the city to spend an hour without planning anything.
Start with the Austin listings above, then widen across Texas if the right program sits beyond the metro.
Common questions about arriving, getting around and what to expect from treatment in Austin. If a question is not covered here, a program’s admissions team can answer it directly.
Sometimes, and it depends on the level of care more than the calendar. Outpatient programs often have quicker openings than residential ones, and the residential programs around Austin are mostly outside the city, which adds a travel step. Ask directly what the current wait is. Going through OSAR on 844-309-6385 can shorten the search because the counselor knows which programs have room.
Fly if you are coming any distance. The airport is a short drive from the central city, though a Hill Country program may be another forty minutes beyond that. Driving makes sense from elsewhere in Texas, since Interstate 35 links Austin to Dallas Fort Worth and San Antonio.
The clinical supply is spread through the central city and the eastern side rather than gathered in one district, with additional capacity north along Interstate 35 in Round Rock, Cedar Park and Georgetown. Of the 40 centers our directory lists inside Austin, most are outpatient or hospital-affiliated. Residential care means leaving the city limits.
Programs in the central city stand the best chance, particularly along the North Lamar, South Congress, Burnet and South Lamar corridors that MetroRapid serves. The MetroRail Red Line runs northwest toward Leander rather than through the densest parts of town, and it does not reach the airport. Anywhere in the suburbs, assume you need a car.
Some, and it is worth asking before anything else if you are keeping a job. Intensive outpatient programs commonly run evening tracks because their clients work. Ask for the actual schedule and what happens when you miss a session, and factor in Interstate 35 traffic if your drive crosses the city at six o’clock.
For most of the year, bring hot-weather clothing, a hat and shoes you can walk in. If you are going to a program near water, a swimsuit is more useful here than it sounds. Medications should travel in their original containers. Typically, the program will send you a packing list with rules specific to its facility.
Cary has spent the majority of her 30 plus years as an LPN working toward improving the lives of the most marginalized members of her community. She holds a BA in Liberal Arts and is pursuing her Master’s degree, focusing on public health policy where she can combat healthcare disparity.
