Alcohol and other drug treatment services in Australia: early insights 2024–25

Who uses alcohol and other drug treatment services?

Profile of clients

In 2024–25, publicly funded AOD treatment services provided treatment to 127,804 clients across Australia. Nationally, among these clients:

• 3 in 5 people (62%, 78,799 clients) who received treatment for their own or someone else’s alcohol or drug use were male.
• Of the 92% (117,132) of clients who received treatment for their own alcohol or drug use:
  • half were aged 30–49 (51%, 59,867)
  • 3 in 5 (63%, 73,670) were male.
• Of the 8.3% (10,672) of clients who received support for someone else’s drug use:
  • half were aged 30–49 (49%, 5,198)
  • over 2 in 5 were female (45%, 4,797).
• Less than one percent (0.5%, 643) of all clients reported a sex of ‘Another term’ (Figure 1).

New and returning clients

Of the clients who received treatment for the first time in 2024–25 (new clients):

• 2 in 5 (40%, 51,512) clients had not previously received treatment since 2013–14. Of these clients:
  • 45% were aged 20–39, with 1 in 7 (14%) aged 10–19.
  • 6 in 10 (59%) were male.

Of the clients who had previously received AOD treatment in 2024–25 (returning clients):

• 6 in 10 (60%, 76,292) had previously received AOD treatment from a service at some point since 2013–14, when client reporting was enabled. Of these clients:
  • 3 in 5 were male (63%).
  • Over half (56%) were aged 30–49 (Table SCR.28).

For more information on new and returning clients see Key terminology and glossary.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (First Nations) people

In 2024–25:

• 19% (24,629) of all people aged 10 and over who received treatment or support for their own or someone else’s AOD use were First Nations people (Figure 1).
• Of the clients who received treatment for their own alcohol or drug use, 1 in 5 people were First Nations clients (23,352 or 20%).
• Of the clients who received treatment for someone else’s alcohol or drug use, over 1 in 10 (1,277 or 12%) were First Nations clients.
• Among First Nations clients, 58% of people were aged 20–39.
• The most common principal drugs of concern were alcohol (32% of clients), methamphetamine (27%), cannabis (20%), and heroin (5.3%) among First Nations people who received treatment for their own alcohol or drug use.
• First Nations clients were more than 6 times as likely to receive treatment for alcohol or drug use as non-Indigenous Australians after adjusting for differences in age-structure (3,125 per 100,000 population compared with 457) (age standardised rate ratio for clients aged 10 and over).

The Australian Government funds primary health care services and substance use services specifically for First Nations people. These services may be in scope for the AODTS NMDS, but the majority of the services currently do not report to the NMDS. As a result, the number of First Nations clients and treatment episodes may be under-estimated. Refer to the technical notes for further details on data collection and funding of First Nations AOD services.

Treatment episodes per client

In 2024–25:

• There were fewer clients overall, but on average people were receiving more treatment episodes, especially in Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
• Nationally, people receiving 1 treatment episode is dropping and people receiving 2–5 episodes, 6–9 episodes and more than 10 episodes is rising (see Figure 3).

Some states and territories apply different methods for counting treatment episodes. Further information is available in Alcohol and Other Drug Treatment Services National Minimum Dataset 2024–25 Data Quality Statement.