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The setting is 1982 in Berkeley, California. Vicki and David are due for a baby. Nic is born in July. Over Nic's first three years of life David learns about his likes and dislikes, parents Nic on how to treat animals and people, he also teaches him about different weathers. David and Vicki attend couples therapy to try to save their marriage out of their shared love for Nic but it cant be done. Nic is harshly affected by the splitting of his parents. David and Vicki get shared custody and Vicki moves to LA and remarries. Over time both parents want full custody so they both hire lawyers to achieve it. David gets daily custody and Vicki gets holidays. Nic starts kindergarten and meets a friend he hangs out with all the time and shares the same interests.

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Nic and David bond over going on a walk through the park and making pancakes. Davids apartment is full of Nics things even though he tries to keep it all in Nics room. Nic has many questions for his father and is overall what seems like a very fun kid. David takes Nic to school before realizing it is a Saturday, he then remembers how his girlfriend used to help with Nic, and in turn, remembers how the two met. Once David realizes Nic watching his father date again may be hard he decides to take a break but he meets a woman named Karen who moves in with the two boys after over 6 months of David and Karen dating. Nic is starred in a commercial and David and Karen get married. Nic and Karen bond and draw cartoons together all the time. Nic even starts calling Karen "mama" and other nicknames. Karen starts understanding Nic and his emotions a lot and is able to help him when hes upset without saying much.

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Karen owns a cabin in Inverness and the boys spend a lot of time there with her. Right before Nics 6th grade year they build a house and move to Inverness as well. Nic quickly makes friends with his classmates and with his teachers. Soon after his friends come over and meet Karen and David and play games. Later on in the week, nic goes to school as usual in the morning but when he comes home he's visibly upset and explains that Kurt Cobain had shot himself. Nic enters eighth grade and finds new bands but always reverts back to classics, his favorite being Nirvana. One day during May Nic gets picked up from school and smells like cigarettes when initially asked he says he wasn't smoking but after a while, he confesses and promises not to do it again. That Friday when David is packing a bag for Nic to go overnight with his friend he finds marijuana.

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David talks about his experience with marijuana and other drugs and how it effected people around him. Because David knew the effects drugs could have on people he talked to Nic about them early on and explained his experiences with them. David takes the bag he found in Nics things and shows Karen. David calls the two boys in from the yard and shows them the bag and asked how long the two have been smoking it. They both admit that they had done it once before. David informs Nics friend that he is going to call his parents and that the boys can no longer have a sleepover. The parents blame Nic and his other friends for peer pressuring their son into it and that he couldn't have on his own. David later sits down with Nic and tries to understand why he would want to smoke, Nic has no answer. He also admits that he and a different friend had gotten drunk one time on a ski trip. Nic admits he only really drank and smoke because everyone else did it. David meets with Nics teacher and asks that Nic is forbid to be around the boys who would force Nic into doing drugs again. Throughout his 8th grade year Nic seems to stay away from the bad influences and surfs with David and his other friends more. Early June 7th Karen and Davids child  Daisy is born.

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Nic distracts Jasper by singing and being weird so David can brush Jaspers hair. Nic leaves for the summer to stay with his mom. Nic and David call regularly and talk about how their summers are going. Nic will come home for two weeks and David and the family will do something fun with him. They also go visit him in LA for weekends. After summer is finally over and they pick Nic up at the airport he talks about his weird seatmate and how she gave him a tape. Jasper asks Nic what LA is like and they both agree that each misses the other when theyre apart. Nic complains about going back and fourth all the time from LA to Inverness.

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Nic is settling into his new highschool and is doing well until he is busted for buying marijuana on school campus. David and Karen go meet with the dean and learn that Nic will be given another chance as long as he attends drug and alcohol counseling. Nics counselor, don, and Nic get along really well and are both passionate about surfing. Don checks in on Nic every once in a while at school to make sure he is staying clean. Don becomes Nics biggest inspiration.

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David recalls several drug-fueled incidents with Charles: tripping in the desert in Tucson; setting out to watch the sunrise over the ocean in San Diego (only to realize, hours after it had risen, that they were facing the wrong way); skydiving while high and narrowly avoiding disaster when David’s parachute didn’t open (though, thankfully, his reserve chute did). David relays that such stories about intoxicated exploits are dangerous, because they highlight adventure and escape while omitting the trauma and casualties. After Nic ’s summer in France, he begins his senior year in high school. Don has accepted a position at a different school, and so Nic quits the swimming and water polo teams, as well as the newspaper. He maintains good grades, but he cuts classes and comes home late. Nic continues to hang out with boys who are stoners, but he maintains that he’s only using marijuana, an only occasionally. In the late spring, Nic graduates from high school. During the summer, his behavior grows more erratic and moodier. Karen and the kids are planning to go to the beach. As they pack the car, two police officers pull up and get out of their cars. They head for Nic, handcuffing his wrists and putting him into a squad car before driving away.

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The arrest is a result of Nic's failure to appear in court after being cited for marijuana possession. That fall, Nic decides to attend Berkeley. David suggests that Nic meet with the school counselors or his therapist. A week later, Nic’s roommates call David because they are worried that Nic hasn’t shown up for a few days. Two days later, Nic calls, admitting that college just isn’t working. David suspects drugs, but Nic says that he’s simply been feeling depressed and that he wasn’t ready for college. Nic moves home and decides to apply to another college. In the meantime, he will go to therapy, honor curfews, help around the  house,  and work. Nic agrees, and a few months later he is accepted to Hampshire College. Daivd knocks on  Nic's door and discovers that he is not there. David starts calling Nic’s friends and his  therapist, but no one has seen him. Four days later, Nic fnally calls, saying that he’s in trouble.  David insists that Nic must go to rehab, and Nic agrees.  The morning of the appointment at the rehab center, however, Nic refuses to go, insisting that he doesn’t need rehab. He says that he learned how dangerous meth is and will never use it again. David is horrified that Nic has used meth, as David had his own experience with the drug.

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Knowing that Nic has used meth, David tries to learn more about it. In addition to crime, meth causes significant environmental damage, as one pound of meth creates six pounds of corrosive liquids, vapors, and metals. The health effects of meth are incredibly serious, as drug overdoses from meth land more people in emergency rooms than any other club drug combined. Meth also contributes to fatal accidents and suicides and can lead to ruptured aortas and lung problems. Many meth addicts lose their teeth, and chronic meth use can cause “Parkinson’s-like cognitive dysfunction” from meth-induced strokes. Daivd continues asking Nic to go to rehab, but Nic refuses, insisting that he won’t use meth again. Because Nic is over 18, David cannot involuntarily commit him. He says that if he had seen this coming, he would have forced Nic into rehab while he still could. For the next three days, Nic sleeps for 20 hours a day, and afterward he is depressed and withdrawn. In the spring Nic disappears again without warning.

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With Nic gone, David once again calls hospital rooms and jails. He is bombarded by more advice, including to kick Nic out. Nic is gone for six days, and David is frantic, spending hours on the internet reading about the effects of drugs on teenagers. He holds it together in front of Jasper and Daisy, but privately he breaks down, weeping uncontrollably.  A week later, Nic returns to the house—“frail, ill, and rambling—a barely recognizable phantom.” David once again implores Nic to go to rehab, but Nic simply collapses on his bed and falls asleep. While Nic sleeps, David searches for a rehab facility. They variously claim 25 to 85 percent success rate for getting sober, but a nurse admits to David that the real number is in the single digits. David chooses a highly recommended place in Oakland named Thunder Road. On the day of Nic's appointment, David tells Nic that they are going to rehab. Nic once again refuses, saying that David can’t make him go. David gives Nic an ultimatum. Nic pounds his fist against the table and kicks the wall, sobbing—but then he follows David to the car.

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As David drives to the rehab center, Nic tries to talk him out of it. He says that he’ll try to run away. He screams, “You fucking think you know me? You don’t know anything about me. You have always tried to control me.” When Nic’s words start to slur, David realizes that he is still high. Nic meets with a counselor, she tells David that Nic could die from the drugs he’s using, and that he doesn’t understand that he’s in trouble. She says it’s typical of addicts to be in denial and to think that they can stop whenever they want, even if they wind up in jail or the hospital. She gives David recommendations for other programs, explaining that Nic is too resistant and nearly too old for this program. He finds one named Ohlhoff Recovery in San Francisco. Nic agrees to go for an evaluation. The director says that it is okay that Nic is angry and that Nic has as much of a chance of recovery as someone who wants to be treated. The director says that she will check him in in the morning for the 28-day treatment. The next morning, when David drops Nic off David is guilty, thinking that he has betrayed and abandoned Nic, but he is comforted by the fact that he knows where Nic is.

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Nic vanishes from Ohlhoff. David realizes how preoccupied by Nic their lives are becoming. He sometimes snaps at Karen, and she gets particularly exasperated by David’s preoccupation. David decides to drive to San Francisco to find Nic, scouring the neighborhoods in which he thinks Nic might be. David even asks one waifish young woman, who is clearly high on meth. David offers to buy the girl some food, and she agrees. As they eat, she tells David about her life: how she used to be good in school until a boy gave her meth at 14 years old.  She tells David about her parents, who live in Ohio and who hired a private detective to find her when she ran away. David drives home, thinking that he is probably exactly like the girl’s parents. He again is consumed by guilt and self-blame, wondering what he could have done differently. After a few days, he hears from Nic whos obviously lying about where he is and what he is dong. David enrolls Nic in a program at Saint Helena Hospital, located in Napa Valley.

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David and Karen return to the hospital the next weekend. This week’s forum is on how addiction can affect families: family members of addicts often blame themselves and feel rage and worry. The speaker then holds up a mobile with paper doll figures. Nic is in the center, surrounded by figures on the periphery, which represent Karen, Jasper, and Daisy. David and Karen meet Nic for lunch, who seems a little better, but still somewhat dejected. Nic confesses to David that he has a difficult time with the second step of the 12 steps. Additionally, the third step then says that one must turn one’s will to the care of “God as we understood him.” Nic says that he doesn’t believe in God. Later, David asks Nic if he thinks addiction is a disease. Nic says that he goes back and forth. David asks what initially flipped the switch, and Nic says that it began in Paris, where he frequently got drunk. When Nic got home, he couldn’t get alcohol, so he started smoking pot. After that, he took anything he could find, and meth made him feel better than anything.

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Nic continues going through the program, expressing his gratitude to David for getting him there. During his third week, he asks David if college is still an option in the fall. Nic promises to attend AA meetings regularly, to work with a sponsor, and to request a substance-free dorm. Following Nic’s graduation from the program a week later, David picks him up from St. Helena. Nic speaks brightly about the future and wants to commit to stay away from drugs. Then, at the end of the summer, Nic sets off for Hampshire. A month later, he still sounds okay. He has had regular sessions with a drug and alcohol counselor, attends meetings, and has found a sponsor. After another month, Nic stops returning David’s calls, and David assumes that he has relapsed. David asks a friend to check in on Nic, and they report that Nic was indeed high in his room. When Nic calls, he admits that he screwed up and promises to stop using—he had to go through it to learn. He keeps in touch and comes home for winter break. As the school year winds down, Nic plans his trip for China. He is overjoyed to be coming home for a bit before he heads out. But when he returns, he confesses that he has been using the whole semester and leaves, slamming the door behind him. The next morning, Jasper comes into the living room holding a satin box in which he keeps his savings of $8. He is confused and says that he thinks Nic took his money.

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David kept his family’s problem a secret for a while to protect Nic, but he has learned how much it helps to talk about Nic’s addiction and to hear and read others’ stories.  He worries about the tacit permissions he gave Nic by talking about his own drug use and is horrified about the time they smoked together. He is mortified to cry in public but also relieved. He continues to go back to the meetings, and he hears heartbreaking stories. David thinks about how the divorce was the most difficult aspect of Nic’s childhood. David thinks about what else there is to blame, like the privileged upbringing Nic had or his private school. But research confirms that addiction affects people regardless of wealth, education, race, geography, or intelligence. Sometimes, David understands that nothing is to blame. David also struggles with understanding that addiction is a disease, reasoning that people with cancer don’t lie and steal. Some still believe that addiction is a moral failing. Others understand that no addict wants to be addicted to drugs; something has happened in their brains to cause the addiction. David reminds himself that if Nic did not have a disease, he would not lie, steal, or terrorize his family. While it is not his fault that he has a disease, it is his fault that he relapses, and he must be held accountable to do that work.

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By June, Nic still hasn't returned. Every time the phone rings, David grows anxious, wondering if it is Nic calling. David wonders where he could be. Nancy is shocked to discover Nic sleeping in her laundry room under a pile of blankets. He is clearly high, shaking and skeletal. Nic wakes, startled to find himself in Nancy’s home, and apologizes. Nancy, also shaken, offers Nic food. Nic takes a banana from the kitchen and walks out of the house. Nancy calls David to tell him what happened, wishing she could have made Nic stay. There is no news for another week, until Nic calls his godfather who begs Nic to get help, seeing his gaunt appearance. Nic lies that he’s stopped using and leaves. Again, David calls hospitals and jails, but there’s no news for another two weeks. One day, Karen comes in and hands David a canceled check made out from David to Nic. The signature is an obvious forgery. Karen is furious and hurt. David tries to say that Nic wouldn’t do this if he were in his right mind. A few nights later, Nic returns home. He grunts a “hey” and rushes past David into his room. David asks him where he has been, but Nic doesn’t answer and starts to search his room. David tries to get him to go back to rehab but Nic says that it’s his life to throw away and that he has nothing to throw away, and he rushes past David and leaves. Nic’s girlfriend calls David and cries on the phone, saying that Nic stole hypodermic needles and morphine from her mother’s house when they visited last month—which were for her cancer medication. Two weeks pass, and Nic sends an email asking for help and money. David writes back that he will only help him return to treatment, which Nic declines. David asks him to meet for lunch, and Nic agrees to meet at a café—but Nic is an hour and 15 minutes late to lunch. After David and Nic say goodbye, David realizes how much he is now tolerating that he once thought “unthinkable.” He also thinks about how his expectations for Nic have changed.

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David is at a farmer’s market with Daisy and Jasper when his cell phone rings. He answers the phone, but no one is there. There’s a message from Nic, his voice slurring, saying that he’s crashing out and has been sleeping a lot. Nic says that he’s confused and hangs up. A week later, Nic writes to Vicki- his girlfriend. He tells her that he has no money and has been kicked out of the house. He writes another email, telling her that he stole some checks and that he may warrant out for his arrest if Vicki doesn’t help him pay the debt. Nic continues to disappear and reappear, keeping contact with Vicki but not with David. Vicki and her family are horrified by Nic’s condition and the track marks on his arms. They ask him to come to New York, where he can stay with them and detox. Nic agrees, but his dealer gives him a huge amount meth before he leaves, which he snorts before boarding a cross-country flight. While living with her Nic sees a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction. A week later, a bank calls to tell David that someone wrote a check for $500 on a closed account. David feels traumatized, having been robbed by his son. A month later, Nic sounds less desolate. Vicki helps Nic move into an apartment in Brooklyn, and Nic gets a job. He tells David that he wants to return to school, paying his own way. David gets a call from Nic’s stepfather telling David that a doctor in Brooklyn called, saying that Nic is in critical condition and on life support. David calls the doctor, who explains that someone called 911 because Nic was unconscious. After David has made plans to fly to new york the doctor calls back and tells David that Nic should pull through. He calls the hospital later in the day. Nic is hardly coherent, but he asks to go into another program, saying it is his only chance. Soon after the nurse informs David that Nic checked out against the doctor’s orders, simply pulling out his IV and leaving. Nic calls back in the morning from his apartment. He says that he freaked out in the hospital and had to get out of there. Nic begs to go to rehab, David agrees. The next morning, David and Nic go to Hazelden, the nation’s best-known drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. It is an ongoing program of six months, and patients are required to work or attend school. There is a long list of rules, but they are able to come and go as they please, as long as they are present at dinner and required meetings and appointments. Nic has an admission appointment, and then he and David say goodbye. They hug, and David thinks that Nic’s body feels brittle and fragile.

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David stays on the West Coast, monitoring Nic’s recovery, conducts more research on meth addiction and asks experts what they would do if a family member were addicted. The goal, experts say, is to keep addicts in treatment long enough to retrain their brains when confronting situations that would lead to relapse. In December, Hazelden’s inpatient program closes its doors. Nic chooses to move to LA to live near Vicki in Herbert House. On the phone, Nic seems like “the old Nic.” David is glad that Nic seems to have found a program that suits him. In July, Nic turns 21. David visits Nic in Los Angeles and is glad to see that he appears “whole again.”  Karen has been wary of letting Nic see Jasper and Daisy again. Still, at the end of the summer, David, Karen, Jasper, and Daisy visit Nic in LA; they all start to feel more comfortable together again. Nic calls frequently, reporting things that seem like small steps but to him are huge. He has a bank account and is saving money, and he buys a car and moves into an apartment. Nic celebrates a year of sobriety in September. Soon after a breakup, Nic stops returning David’s calls. David feels his intuition saying that something is wrong. David calls Vicki, asking her to check on Nic in his apartment. She reports that his roommate hasn’t seen him, and his bed hasn’t been slept in. A coworker of Nic’s says that he has not shown up in two days. David calls customer service for Nics phone line and convices the woman to tell him where he was. She reports that Nic’s phone is accessing a cell tower in Sacramento. Two hours later, the operator calls back to report that Nic’s cell phone is now in Reno. Later, she calls again to say that it’s in Billings, Montana. David wonders if Nic has been kidnapped.

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Four days after Nic has disappeared, someone finally answers his phone—but it’s not Nic. The man explains that he doesn’t know Nic; Nic gave the man his phone at a bus station in LA, and the man hasn’t seen him since. David and Vicki are frantic, calling anyone they can to see if he has heard from Nic. When Vicki tries Z., Z. says that she just heard from Nic. He called her, high, from San Francisco. David drives around San Francisco, looking everywhere for Nic, but he doesn’t find him. Nic is gone for weeks. One morning the following week, Karen notices a few things out of place in the house. David and Karen then find a broken deadbolt on the door to their bedroom; David’s desk drawers have been ransacked. They know that Nic broke in. David, feeling sad and furious, calls a locksmith and David starts to become afraid of Nic, wondering where else he might break into.a burglar alarm company.  The next day, David hears from family friends. They relay that Nic and his friends broke in and spent the night in their living room; in their wake, they left evidence of smoking and shooting meth. Three days later, Nic calls, telling David everything: he has relapsed on meth and heroin. David says that he can only tell Nic what he already knows she should do: call Randy. Randy calls in a half hour, saying that he heard from Nic and he encouraged him to return to LA. David continues to go to Al-Anon meetings, crying as he retells the story of the previous weeks. David is unsure how life can go on, but it does Nic reports to David that Randy is helping him get his life back; they take bicycle rides together. Two months pass, and David visits LA. He and Nic get dinner. Nic apologizes, unable to fully express how much he is sorry for.  Jasper asks if Nic is going to use drugs anymore, and Nic promises not to.

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David’s article “My Addicted Son” appears in The New York Times Magazine in February. The feedback on the article is encouraging.  Later in February, Nic takes a few days off work to join David and the kids for a ski trip. Nic seems enthusiastically committed to his sobriety. He is writing short stories and movie reviews for a magazine. He tells David that he loves his life.On June 2nd, David feels as though his head is exploding—literally. Karen calls 911, and David is taken to a hospital. He hears the phrase “cerebral hemorrhage.” David can’t speak; he is operated on, and a hole is drilled into his skull to alleviate the pressure. David is anxious, and his thoughts are only of Nic. When he wakes, a nurse explains that he is bleeding inside his brain, which is usually caused by an aneurism. David remembers wishing that he could expunge Nic from his brain, so he wouldn’t have to be disappointed and hurt by him and wouldn’t have to blame himself or Nic. He remembers secretly wishing for a lobotomy, and the irony of his situation sinks in. He cannot recall his name or the year, but he still worries about Nic. David remains in the hospital for days, confused and in pain. On June 11, he can answer the doctor’s questions: his name is David Sheff. After two weeks in the hospital, David goes home. Nic says he was worried that David was going to die. David replies, “that’s a switch.” David gets out more and more, and Nic reaches the milestone of being sober for a year and a half. David now has a hole in his head, but doctors tell him it will grow together.

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Having missed most of the summer, David tries to hang onto it as much as he can while his head heals. The kids return to school, and David starts to write again. David checks his answering machine in Inverness and discovers a voicemail from Nic, who is crying. It’s from three hours earlier. He calls Nic, who admits that three days prior, he was at a party with Z. and he did a line with her. David hangs up, furious. Nic had made it almost two years sober. He remembers that lying in the neuro ICU, he’d had a realization: Nic, Jasper and Daisy would survive his death. David is inconsequential to Nic’s survival. He can try to protect his children, to help and guide them, but he cannot save them. David admits that he wanted to end his book with Nic’s letter to Jasper; he wanted to move on from Nic’s addiction. But he knows that addiction is incurable, and there won’t be a perfect happy ending. Nic shows up high at work and loses his job. His phone is disconnected, and he deserts his friends, including Randy. Vicki drives to his apartment and finds the place filthy: there is brown water on the floor and trash everywhere. Nic is trembling and high, and Z.’s legs are bleeding. Nic tells Vicki to leave and not come back. On Sunday, David is driving Daisy and a friend to a birthday party. They play a game where they start a sentence with “fortunately,” then another with “unfortunately.” David plays his own version: “Fortunately I have a son,” “Unfortunately he is a drug addict,” “Fortunately he is in recovery,” “Unfortunately he relapses.” He repeats these last two sentences in his mind until he concludes, “Fortunately he is not dead.”

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Randy continues to call Nic and leave messages on his cell phone. Using Z.’s phone, Nic leaves messages saying that they’re going to meetings and getting sober. But the more he speaks, the more David believes he sounds high. Two weeks later, Nic calls asking for rent money. David and Vicki both say no. One evening, David receives calls from Nic’s godfather and Vicki, who just heard from Nic. Nic said that he is in Oakland and that he’d lied about being in Joshua Tree. Nic said that they were in trouble and needed plane tickets back to LA. Vicki is unsure of what to do, and David tells her that he won’t help Nic unless he wants to go into rehab. The next day, Nic leaves more messages for Vicki and his godfather, saying that he and Z. found money to fly home. Later, he listens to the message: Nic saying that he’s driving back from Joshua Tree and that he’s in cell phone range again. David is struck by the intricacy of Nic’s lies and by the fact that Nic thinks that Vicki and Nic’s godfather wouldn’t have told David about his messages. Nic says that he misses and loves David.

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Nic calls again, explaining that he knows that David found out the truth about what happened. He says he’s sorry for lying and that he didn’t want to worry David. On top is a flyer from Nic’s favorite record store. The papers aren’t Karen’s, and immediately they jump to the conclusion that Nic broke in. But they soon realize that the newspapers belonged to a friend who visited the previous weekend. David looks at his desk and puts away a recent photograph of Nic when he was in recovery. The next day, David thinks about Nic. He is momentarily stunned by the thought that Nic could die. He realizes that he would miss having Nic in his life, but then he has a further realization: he misses it now. He has not had Nic whenever Nic is on drugs. He knows that he will always love Nic, but that Nic on drugs is only a ghost of his sober self.  Nic leaves another message for David, saying that he and Z. went too far and now plan to get sober. David doesn’t believe it. All he can do is hope that Nic has some kind of “near miss”—something dramatic enough to make him return to treatment, but not enough to kill him.

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David and Vicki agonize over what to do. Nic calls again, high, asking for money. While Vicki argues that they have to try, David responds that they cannot control what Nic is doing. David, Karen, and Vicki decide to pay the cost of rehab one more time if they can get Nic to go. One morning, Nic calls and tells David that he has a new plan: he and Z. finished their stash of meth, and they’re going to keep each other sober. Meanwhile, David hears from another friend, arguing that it’s a mistake to try rehab again and again, because rehabs are designed to keep people coming back. In a week Nic leaves a message, saying that he is now 11 days sober. Yet later, when Nic calls again, David can tell that Nic is high. Nic says that it’s only from drugs that doctors prescribed to get him off meth, coke, and heroin. David hangs up. In the morning, David receives an emergency email from Z., who says that Nic dropped her off at the market that morning and said he’d be back in 15 minutes. He left her there for four hours and never came back.

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David calls Z., who explains further: Nic dropped her off at the market at 5:45 a.m. and took her car to Vicki’s. He was going to break in and steal Vicki’s computer and come back, but he disappeared for four hours. David calls Vicki, who finds Nic in the garage, piling things into shopping bags. He’s tweaking, and he managed to lock himself inside somehow. David calls Nic, telling him about the bed in Hazelden, but Nic says that he can recover alone. With pressing from both David and Z., Nic relents and agrees to go. He says that he thought he could stay sober because he wanted to, admitting, “I guess this is what it means to be an addict.” On Monday, Nic speaks to a counselor at Hazelden and says that he is going to Oregon. David books a flight and calls Hazelden to be sure that someone will pick Nic up—but the counselor at Hazelden says that Nic was not approved for admission. David finds a program in Santa Fe for Nic to go to, and Vicki drives him to the airport. The therapist talks to the kids reassuringly, and that it’s very scary to have a brother addicted to drugs. Karen talks about how whenever something is missing, she panics that Nic might have broken in again. The therapist explains how triggers can return people to a state of panic, like the newspapers they found. David nods, saying that he thinks this happens when the phone rings.  The therapist suggests shutting off his ringer for periods of time and establishing times when David and Nic can speak on the phone so that he doesn’t constantly worry about Nic calling. David drives through the town and arrives at the rehab center. David is upset, thinking how many times he has done this before. The next day, David drives to the center for another group therapy session. It is a relief to talk about his problems. David returns home, feeling completely raw and exposed.