Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst, Massachusetts, is where Nic Sheff tries to make college and recovery coexist. Through Hampshire College’s open-ended academic setting, his father’s hopes for a new beginning, and the strain of Nic’s relapse and renewed efforts, Amherst becomes both a place of possibility and a test of whether structure can hold against addiction.

Hampshire College and Its Setting

Hampshire College stands on a former apple orchard whose landscape retains the feeling of a farm. Its liberal arts program offers a wide range of majors and courses, and its membership in a five-college consortium broadens those choices: Nic can take classes at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, Smith, and Mount Holyoke, with shuttle buses connecting the campuses. Amherst is thus presented not simply as the site of one college but as an interconnected academic environment, with room to explore different subjects and institutions. David Sheff and Karen Barbour fly east with Nic to help him settle in for freshman orientation. The visit has an earlier echo: David and Nic had discovered an Indian restaurant during a college tour more than a year before, and they return to it as Nic begins this new stage. The family’s preparations give the move a practical, hopeful shape, even as the distance from home makes the transition feel consequential.

College Life and the Work of Recovery

Nic’s early calls from his dorm sound promising to David, who imagines him attending classes and contributing to discussions. The account keeps that academic picture alongside the less visible work required to stay sober. Besides coursework, Nic attends regular sessions with a drug and alcohol counselor recommended by the school. As agreed with his family, he also goes to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and finds a sponsor, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts. The sponsor hosts students at his house every Sunday morning for muffins, coffee, and a meeting. Nic reports regularly to his father about classes, new friends, and the Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings he attends during the week. Those updates ease David’s worry, though a later call carries signs of strain: Nic sounds all right, but David hears his nervous breathing and a sigh before they hang up. The distance means that the father’s view of college life arrives in fragments—phone calls that offer reassurance, but cannot make the effort of staying sober visible at close range.

Relapse, Renewed Effort, and Amherst’s Place in the Story

After a month, Nic abruptly stops returning David’s calls. David assumes he has relapsed. The apparent protection of a substance-free dorm proves uncertain: Nic complains that it is not substance free, describing weekends marked by carousing, falling, stumbling, and vomiting. The contrast between the dorm’s stated rule and the sounds Nic reports undercuts the idea that a college setting can, by itself, ensure sobriety. David concludes that, despite Nic’s protestations and perhaps his good intentions, Nic had little chance in those circumstances. The narrative later presents a renewed period of apparent engagement with college and recovery. A teacher offers to help Nic become a better writer if he stays sober, making continued participation conditional on his choices; Nic shows up the following Monday and shakes the teacher’s hand. He sounds stable in his courses, attends regular twelve-step meetings, works with his sponsor, and falls in love with Julia, who drives him to meetings. In late winter, Julia and Nic travel from Amherst to meet David for dinner in Boston. Their closeness and animated conversation about books, politics, and films offer a vivid counterpoint to the earlier silence, without erasing the precariousness that has defined Nic’s time at college. Amherst holds both sides of that attempt: an expansive campus life and a recovery routine, but no guarantee that either can prevent relapse.