The largest addiction clinic in Minnesota shut down for fraud. Patients scattered like glass, the state shrugging at the shards.
By Thursday, Ojas and I were on a flight. Not because we were ready, but because the alternative was standing still. One doctor gave us her Thursdays. Just Thursdays. Enough to fake a beginning.
We carried donuts into detox centers, rehearsed promises in the smell of bleach and resignation. Ten patients came. Ten was proof. Ten was also nothing.
I don’t trust telling this story. Too easy to polish it into “founder lore.” To make refusal look like vision. To pretend rage was a strategy instead of the only thing left.
The truth is, it wasn’t about ten patients, or even Minnesota. It was about time.
So if you want the origin story, here it is:
Grata wasn’t born from opportunity. It was born from disgust. From the smell of waiting rooms that had already given up. From the fear of what delay does to a human being.
Because waiting is the system. Waiting is the disease.
And refusal, immediate, uncompromising refusal to accept "later", is the only cure.