Jacob Raab

The full story

I have lived in and around addiction and trauma in more forms than most people know exist.

I grew up in it. I survived it. I fought my way out — not once, but over and over, under conditions that would have ended most people. I know what it feels like when the system doesn't have a place for you. I also know what it feels like to refuse to stop fighting until you find your way out the other side.

The First Fourteen Years

I am a male domestic violence survivor with fourteen years of continuous sobriety, earned while doing my absolute best to be a father and grow a beautiful family I started in my early twenties. I am a former rail car electrician who was electrocuted on the job and spent years fighting a medical and legal system that failed me at every turn. I live with bipolar disorder, PTSD, severe anxiety, ADHD, OCD — what today often gets folded into a single diagnosis of CPTSD. I navigated the treatment system not as a passive patient but as someone who showed up — to facilities, to appointments, to detox at home when I had to — week after week, year after year, because stopping was never an option I was willing to accept.

My recovery was not linear. But it was relentless.

Addiction vs. Dependence

What most people don't talk about — and what the treatment system rarely acknowledges — is the difference between addiction and dependence, and how that distinction keeps people trapped. For many people in long-term medication-assisted treatment, the dependency itself becomes a barrier — not because the medication isn't working, but because the infrastructure around it doesn't teach people how to live within it.

I spent roughly the first half of my time in MAT learning to manage my own dependency. The second half, I figured out something most people never do: how to maintain genuine stability inside that framework. Not perfectly — but to the absolute best of my above-average abilities. Too many people don't have the support, the passion of a parent fighting for their kids, or the will power of a lion to do this alone.

If you have a dream, a passion, a purpose you're still searching for — start. Fail fast, fail honestly, and learn the hardest lessons the work will give you. The lessons that hold up are forged under pressure, not in comfort. Then you turn around and share them.

The Coach Who Wasn't a Coach

Once I had stability, I started doing something that felt natural — helping the people around me do the same. I became, for lack of a better term, a life coach. Not officially. Not with a credential. But practically — helping friends navigate recovery, stay on track, balance their finances, make it through the week.

I helped one friend get to a treatment facility in Florida. He met a woman there. He's been sober for years now, working his way up at a car dealership, golfing, smiling in pictures. He came back to New York at one point, considering his old factory job — good money, terrible environment. He asked my advice. He walked out my door, got in the car with his partner, and drove south and didn't stop.

That's one good ending. I've seen a lot of those. I've also seen the other kind.

The $4,800 Indictment

When I started researching ketamine-assisted therapy, I did what I always do — I went deep. I found a facility in Rochester offering four sessions for $4,800. I called. I asked about the protocol. They would inject you and walk you back out the door. No therapist. No music therapy. No cognitive behavioral support. No integration. Nothing. Just a shot, a 90-minute drive home, and a bill.

Read that again. Four thousand eight hundred dollars. A drug known to crack people wide open. And no one in the room when it happens.

I was ready to do it anyway — because I was that desperate for something that worked — but I kept researching. I found online resources, therapeutic frameworks, integration practices. I built my own protocol. I did a better job of designing a proper ketamine treatment experience than the hospital that was charging nearly five thousand dollars for it.

That's not a brag. That's an indictment of the current state of psychedelic-assisted therapy and most medical care access in this country.

The treatments work. The evidence is clear. The problem is access, education, and infrastructure. Too many facilities are slapping together a building, hiring providers who want a paycheck, and calling it treatment. No proper intake. No patient-modality matching. No therapeutic support. No outcomes tracking. No follow-up. Just a drug administered in a clinical vacuum and a patient sent home to figure out the rest alone.

DBATR Exists to Fix That

DBATR is the link. Not the provider, not the facility, not the government office — the link that connects every person, place, and resource in one place, with the click of a finger. AI-guided intake. Proper patient-modality matching across four evidence-based psychedelic-assisted therapy modalities — ketamine, psilocybin, ibogaine, and MDMA-assisted therapy — alongside other forms of treatment and support. Pharmaceutical-grade supply chains. Clinical oversight. Integration. Outcomes tracking. And a training arm that reaches the people who work with these populations every day — first responders, social workers, corrections officers, employers — and gives them the tools to actually help.

AIBES — A Third System

And now a third system: AIBES — AI-Orchestrated Institutional Backlog Elimination. Because I met a man who was sitting in jail not because of a judge's decision, but because Albany was six months behind on paperwork. That's not justice. That's a processing failure.

AIBES uses the same AI orchestration architecture to identify, prioritize, and eliminate document backlogs across courts, public defender offices, corrections, benefits agencies, and healthcare systems — prioritizing the people whose lives are most directly affected by the delay. Three patents. One mission. One platform.

A Sixth Sense, Earned

I am not a researcher by training. I am an electromechanical engineer by education and a survivor by experience. I have a sixth sense for what people in crisis need — not because I studied it, but because I lived it, and because I have spent my adult life being the person others call when they don't know where else to turn.

I have existing relationships with treatment facilities, therapists, recovery organizations, and advocacy groups throughout the Buffalo/Niagara region. I have clinical providers who have watched my recovery for a decade and are willing to stand behind this work.

I filed three provisional patents between April and May 2026. I formed an LLC in New Mexico. I obtained an EIN. I registered with SAM.gov. I built a complete NIDA SBIR Phase I application. I launched a product with Stripe payment processing. I did most of this with no funding, no team, and no roadmap — just the knowledge that this needed to exist and the stubbornness to make it happen.

The Turning Point

The turning point came from an unexpected place. A legal battle over child support — a magistrate imputing income I couldn't earn because I couldn't leave my bed — forced me to research. And in that research, I found something I'd never found before: language from new studies on male domestic violence. Terminology that gave words to experiences I'd carried for decades without being able to name them. That language changed everything. It gave me the ability to be understood. To understand myself. To build a network I didn't know I'd already created on my journey.

That's when DBATR stopped being an idea and became a mission.

I love myself. I love my kids. I love and appreciate my life like I've never been able to before. I'm not just free — I'm grateful. More than ever. For every success, every failure, every person who showed me or others kindness. I've gathered every bit and piece from it all, and I'm so excited to share it.

No More Hiding

There was a moment — quiet, unwitnessed — when I realized the walls I'd built to keep trouble out had also been keeping me in.

I am done being scared. Done hiding. Done being squeezed into a cage so tight it felt like being weighted to the bottom of the ocean, helpless, where even I could start to feel hopeless. I have been there. I did feel that.

The rock bottom I hit was deeper than the alcoholic version of me ever knew. The climb back was steeper. But the roar on the other side is real — and it belongs to anyone willing to do the work. Here is the playbook I keep finding underneath every chapter of my life worth talking about:

Imagine the lowest point you have survived — then match it with the opposite pull: becoming your best self and shining that out to the entire world. The cries that come with feeling like you have to walk away from the love of your life — not because you do not care, but because the toxic nature and the trauma you both carried, the poor education and broken role models, the flawed compass you were handed, made staying feel like drowning together. We never gave up. Even when family, friends, and every authority around us said we should.

• Move without fear. Start before you feel ready.
• Make the mistake — then look honestly at what went wrong, on your side and the other side.
• Name it out loud. Accept your flaws and your faults.
• Apologize from the depths of your heart, not the surface of your mouth.
• Let yourself feel it when it hurts — especially the moments that feel like losing the love of your life.
• Then stand back up and do the next right thing, even if you can only see ten feet of road ahead.

The lessons that hold up are forged under real pressure. Then you turn around and share every bit of them.

The Relationship That Almost Ended Us Both

I considered cutting this section entirely. I left a shorter version in because the whole purpose of this page is that nobody should have to bury their story to be taken seriously.

For years I was in a relationship with a partner carrying her own significant trauma. I was carrying mine. Two deeply wounded people, full pressure, no buffer between us. The honesty we somehow held onto was rare. The harm we did to each other was real. Both of those things can be true at the same time.

Underneath all of it, I could still see her — the actual human being, not the worst moments. We did not lie to each other, and that is more than most people get.

We are still together. Everyone in our lives — family, friends, professionals, the courts — told us to walk away. We refused. Two people who would not quit on each other while the world kept handing us reasons to. That is its own kind of recovery, and it is part of why I am able to build this.

DBATR exists because the people most likely to be hurt in this country are the people least likely to have somewhere safe to go. That has to stop. I am one of a thousand reasons it has to stop.

I'm telling these stories — mine, the ugly ones, the ones most founders bury — because the whole point of this platform is that nobody should have to bury theirs to be taken seriously. If you've read this far, you already know whether some piece of this is yours too. The link you needed is being built. I'm just barely the beginning.

A Mind Built to Stress-Test

My mind runs like a controlled stress-test of every system it touches — not because I want anything to break, but because I want to know what is real. I will pressure-test a belief, a relationship, a protocol, my own recovery, and watch what actually holds. That is how I learned which of my treatments were theater and which ones held weight. It is how I learned who answers the phone at 3 a.m. and who does not. It is how I am building this.

That's the mission. That's always been the mission.

The Hard Way

Do it the hard way. Lead with grit, with morals, with good faith toward others and real respect for yourself. Keep your dignity — or work to get it back. It is not too late.

Do the right thing over the cheap thing, the easy thing, the most profitable thing. Restructure. Reinvent. Reinvent yourselves, your businesses, your models. We do not really have another option — so bite the bullet, and let us rebuild inside the structures that already exist, starting now.

See It at the Core

Remember all of it — the good times and the bad times that made you you. That favorite color attached to a memory will associate your favorite something, the thing that gives you a warm fuzzy, with those moments. Happy and pleasure, kindness and consideration, compassion and care — in a mindful and conservative manner, in everything you do, who you are, who you want to become. This stuff isn't rocket science. It's common sense. Common courtesy. Common what's-supposed-to-be everyday stuff.

If we all get on board and we all work together, we can do this quickly. And believe me, it's possible — because I did all of this very, very quickly, with nothing but a few hundred bucks and eight different biggest, most complex things going on all at once, right after the lowest point most anyone's ever been, getting hit from everyone, everywhere, everything.

To everyone who made it harder than it had to be: thank you. You woke me up. I wish nothing but the best to everyone. Expect nothing, want nothing — except the chance to pass it on.

Let's do this.

Still becoming

I'm not scared and never running. Fighting for us all and seeing this through til the end. That doesn't mean I never feel fear — we all do, at some point in our lives. It means fear doesn't get to decide.

Every day I am growing and working to become a better man than I was the day before. I still make mistakes. I still stumble over my own words and occasionally say something in a way that comes off sharper or more off-putting than I meant. When I do, pardon my mistakes and forgive my words — they are not the whole of who I am or what I mean.

Please accept me for being me. I am here to help, and I am still learning each day. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your patience as I mature and evolve into the man I am destined to be.

Planetary evolutionary advancement

That is what dbatr.com is built for. Not just a website, not just a directory, not just a company. A step forward in how humanity heals, connects, and takes care of one another across every border, language, and broken system.

Reuniting families. Simplifying life. Standing watch. Ending violence. Healing addiction and trauma. Treating people like people instead of case numbers. Every page, every feature, every line of code is a cell in a larger organism — and it only grows if we keep building it together.

Let's do this.

Health and Happiness as human rights

Health and happiness are not afterthoughts. They are not rewards for the wealthy, the well-connected, or the people who happen to catch a break. They are foundational human rights — for every person, everywhere on Earth.

That belief is the bedrock of this whole build. Recovery, family, dignity, housing, legal help, a clear name, a second chance, a first chance — every piece of it is just a different path back to the same thing: a person who gets to be healthy, happy, and whole.

I am not asking permission to say it. I am saying it plainly: if you are a human being, you deserve access to the conditions that let you heal and thrive. Period. 🌎

Uniting us All with Unlimited Happiness

Uniting us all with unlimited happiness — without a monetary value at the top. The positivity we find when we radiate love, rather than the negativity we find when we prioritize the wrong things. Focus on the inside first, not the exterior. The waves we experience are temporary; they come and go. Realizing that gives us perspective to know that better is coming.

Trade what you want right now for what you need in the bigger picture, for the greater good. Acting selfish hinders progress. Be the fool who believes anything is possible even when everyone else says there is not a chance. Our thoughts influence our behaviors, and the behaviors of those around us. Every single day is ground zero.

We need to be modest and humble. We need the right perspective — showing gratitude instead of blame, because I believe in you, and I believe in finding your health and happiness. My willpower for humanity is what will ride the waves and bring us out the other side.

• I see good intentions everywhere, in everyone.
• I see and know the balance between struggle and feeling alive.
• Being resilient is tough, but it is life.
• We form our destiny one failure and one success at a time.
• See the signs throughout the years and make the changes necessary by changing our mindset.
• Evolve as a species rather than stay stuck in the miserable ages of dinosaurs.
• Battle our dragons and become our own heroes.

When the best leader's work is done, the people will say, "We did this ourselves."

Proverb — traditionally attributed to Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching. Quoted here, not my own writing. Source: Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (traditionally attributed)

I believe I can help make your dreams into our reality.

Self-esteem is earned, not given. Vanity is not true beauty. Push to see a person's soul — our own personal souls. Stop caring about self and start working on your terms for all as one, not all for one.

Develop health routines that encompass everything that is meaningful and more than we had or knew yesterday. Continual growth. Experience your dreams. Imagination. Belief in a better future. Make promises to build what we need and stop wasting time on things we thought or think we want, so we can get what is necessary for all. Belief in our dreams and the creation of a better way of life for all.

Rise with the sun — courage, perspective, and urgency

Wake up as if today could be our last day. Make the best of every moment, every breath. Build routines for success. Each person has control of their own life and their own decisions. Choose happiness even when life throws a curveball. Refuse to keep suffering. Get up and have a good day, a great day, a greater great day — even when everything looks horrible.

Focus on the positive and ignore the negativity, because negativity is contagious and it is not productive. Focus inward. Believe you can do anything, the way I do. Remove the barriers. Relentlessly make life worth living, and influence others to leave the house and come home a better man, woman, or child than they left.

Breath in your lungs equals hope in your heart.

Quoted word for word — Heard in a motivational speech on YouTube. Quoted here — not my own writing. Speaker unconfirmed — do not name one. Source: Motivational speech on YouTube (speaker unconfirmed)

Perspective is everything. See each day like the rest of your life. Do not settle — make the tough change. It is possible if you choose to do the work. Expect more, because you can do this. I do not know your name, but I know you have dreams too, wherever you are, and I know where we are going. Never turn off a better dream for our destiny. Every day: see it, say it, live it.

Good things are not just coming — they are here, because we are still here. We can go far, but we have to make it happen now. Do not take anything for granted, because it can be gone in an instant. Challenge yourself. Challenge others. Live determined to resolve conflict and to invest your time, energy, and focus. Believe it can happen to you, because I am here doing it for you.

Courage is facing everything with everything you have inside you. Express more ideas and live with urgency, because we are here today with no guarantees for tomorrow — so what is the benefit of waiting and not listening to ourselves? Failure is not final, and it does not get to imprison us. Break that cycle. Break into greatness. We will learn lessons that change our lives, and we will get up and try again, and again.

• Pursue meaning, not misery — that is the better contagious emotion.
• Principle, purpose, and dreaming with courage of the heart create better lives for all.
• Courage to be who you are; bravery in united strength.
• Trust your feelings. Be different. Be special.
• No matter your circumstances right now, what YOU can do is unlimited.
• Dreams without goals are just dreams — have dreams with goals.
• Small minds gossip; great minds create solutions that honor and provide for our families.
• If you fall, fall forward. Never settle for a smaller life than you are capable of living.

  Quoted word for word — Quoted from Denzel Washington’s commencement address, watched on YouTube. Not my own writing. Source: Denzel Washington, commencement address (widely circulated on YouTube)

• No reward worth having comes without risk.

Focus on what we need to do rather than what the few want us to do. Commitment and passion for life. Reveal and challenge the powers. Do or die, sink or swim, no retreat. All you can do is enough — and we can and will do more. Make your best contribution to our future. Being alive is not enough; true green is using our voices and staying positive long enough to lock down the right change.

Gain the power of perspective from your pain. Speak and act with emotion, and sustain a new personal reality. Stop complaining, do not quit, and pour your heart out for the people who have less. Make different choices than the ones in the past and create a better outcome. Life is too short to suffer. Count your blessings. The best is yet to come.

Whatever you have, whatever you are talented at, whatever you want in life — work hard to get it, then share it with others. Whatever your passion, give your time and your talents. No matter your age or status, do not be afraid to fail. Hugs, handshakes, and high fives for all. Think outside the box. Dream big. Hit the right home runs, then do it five thousand times more.

Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Prolonged sadness is its own crisis. Have faith that it all connects and that we have the power. Rise with the sun each day and be your own inspiration. Rise up and grind. Families not having enough is not good enough. I do not doubt us — I believe we are stronger than we know and we were made to do great things.

Let us go after tomorrow today. Bring your friends and your families to the table. We all have purpose, and we have to articulate the vision of who we must grow to serve our legacy and our destiny. Become the person with the grit to obsess over real problems until the solutions show up. Plant the seeds. The gift of giving is contagious. I refuse to believe happiness is not found through health, and I understand that we manifest our future by having the courage to make the right choices.

Let's not wait until tomorrow for what we can begin to accomplish today.

I am ready. I am ready. I am ready.

Quoted word for word — Heard in a motivational speech on YouTube. Quoted here — not my own writing. Speaker unconfirmed — do not name one. Source: Motivational speech on YouTube (speaker unconfirmed)

Investing in the futures of families for generations

This is not a one-year campaign. It is a long bet on the people who come after us. Every family we help reunite, every child who gets to see a parent heal, every person who learns to live without shame, every system we make simpler — it compounds. The work we do now pays out for generations.

Investing in the futures of families for generations.

Power, patience, and conscious change

Power is built from our decisions to do the hard thing and not ever give up. Developing patience is the key to the game. Planting the seed and nourishing it as the plant grows. Making the effort to design a better life is the most important thing we can do to produce the sweetest fruit in life — with love.

The truth is we may not be ready. Maybe we need more time. But maybe we need to understand that the process takes time, and we must put in the effort now, with outside-the-box big dreams. I believe we can win with love and forget the poison of hate. To believe that you can do it. Don't do it halfway. Go all the way. Consider the options. Don't fail to recognize the lived experience of those who have done what's right for the right reasons. Don't repeat the choices that have failed us. Take a chance and write a new story for our future.

Consciousness brings new truth to our lives. Condition yourselves to think about you. If you don't understand, you're just not there yet — but that doesn't mean you can't be. To heal is to condition our minds and bodies, behaving better than our past selves, to create our best future. That is a new beginning worth working toward figuring out.

New solutions in energy. Wanting to change, starting this moment. Opening our hearts to give opportunity to change. Thoughts can and do make us sick — it's a chemical reaction, the same as endorphins from happiness and joy. Changing ourselves to think and believe in consciousness through experiences.

The subconscious mind is key to reprogramming our minds — so try this as an experiment.

Go inward each evening as you sit there and consider what your greatest expression that day was. Know that your qualifications are enough. Tell yourself to be bold enough to believe you are enough — and that you've been through enough trauma. Shift the focus to what you CAN control. Be bold enough to have the resilience and faith it takes to make the change. Don't just dip a toe; take a deeper dive. Dust yourself off and get up and keep on going.

Sacrifice luxury today for a better tomorrow. Understand misery and invest in our future while still caring for our families now. Part of life's challenges come from not taking accountability and repeating the same failures. Own your personal greatness as well as your failures. Also give others more credit — happily bestowing gentle reassurances when they try their best. We can and will make mistakes, but let's never regret dusting off and trying again — better.

Consistent habits create less valleys. Let's effectively assess and improve our existing foundation. Let's be for the quality pursuit and longevity of our years.

Appreciate the good challenges that build life experience like the journey I'm still pulling off. I'm learning to reason and use instinct and timing to speak to a universal audience, even when I make mistakes — which do absolutely still happen — but I'm embracing and measuring each high and low.