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Second Chances Innovative in-home drug treatment program saves lives, offers hope \\ By John Stearns M att Eacott's fall from Avon prep school student athlete to opioid misuser and an eventual heroin addiction may have had a sad ending, if he hadn't found a unique in-home treatment program. Eacott said he'd been to 14 residential treatment centers over a 10-year period, traveling as far as Israel to seek help, but he'd always eventually relapse. It's not that inpatient treatment programs have no value, he said, but when he got home he fell back into his old bad habits. Eacott, now 36, said he broke his potential death spiral aer he got enrolled in an addiction treatment program called Aware Recovery Care, which treats clients in their homes. e key was learning to function without drugs in his regular environment, where he had so oen slipped up, he said. "I learned how to develop my own supports, the daily habits and skills necessary for me to have my own individual treatment plan," Eacott said. "Obviously, I was monitored, drug tested regularly." Eacott's not just a former customer of Aware, based in North Haven. Today, he also works there as a partner and vice president. e program, which was founded in 2011 by Stephen Randazzo, bucks treatment norms in both environment and length. A team of providers — including an addiction psychiatrist, therapists, nurses and recovery advisers who are themselves in long-term recovery — works with patients in their homes, on their schedule, over a full year's time. It starts with intensive daily meetings and then slowly tapers off as clients build the confidence and support systems they need to function on their own, said Eacott. Matt Eacott, who was once addicted to drugs, is now helping to expand Aware Recovery Care's in-home treatment program, which aided his own recovery. 18 GREATER HARTFORD HEALTH • Fall 2017