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
