Nic leaves Santa Fe

Nic Sheff’s departure from Santa Fe marks a shift from a family-directed treatment plan toward a life he intends to shape himself. After three months in the program, he declines the next step recommended by his counselors and leaves by bus. For David Sheff, the moment tests a hard-won distinction: he can fear what may follow without claiming the right to choose for his son.

The Decision to Leave

Nic Sheff completes three months at Santa Fe, where his counselors recommend that he continue his recovery work in a program in northern Arizona, while also getting a job and volunteering. He says no. He tells David Sheff that he knows the decision will worry his father, but that he has to get on with his life, and tries to reassure him that things will be all right.

David’s first response is an attempt to stop him: he tells Nic that he cannot leave. Then he remembers that this is Nic’s life. The brief reversal carries the central tension of the departure. The proposed Arizona program offers continued structure and professional support; Nic instead asserts the need to move forward on his own terms. The narrative does not present that choice as proof that the danger has passed.

Leaving and Reconnecting

Nic catches a bus east to visit a friend he met at the program. He and David do not speak for a while, leaving the departure with a period of distance rather than an immediate reconciliation. Later, they resume talking and begin checking in with each other fairly regularly.

Nic’s life takes shape through concrete, ordinary details. He meets a new partner, an art student, and they get a place together. He works at a café, serving decaf when customers ask for it, and returns to writing his book. He now has more to say about how difficult it is to stay sober. That renewed work does not make the uncertainty disappear; instead, his account of sobriety includes the difficulty of maintaining it.

Autonomy and Parental Limits

The departure echoes the limits David has encountered throughout Nic’s addiction. In an earlier crisis, he felt compelled to find a treatment program immediately, before he lost his son. Later, after his own brain hemorrhage, he recognized that even a potentially lethal medical emergency had not erased his worry about Nic. He came to value that enduring attachment rather than wish to remove Nic from his mind. Against this history, letting Nic leave Santa Fe is not indifference: it is a painful recognition that love and vigilance cannot make the decision for him.

David has also come to understand that the boundaries he draws around what he can bear and do may need to be redrawn. Here, that flexibility appears as a change in action: he begins by trying to forbid the departure, then acknowledges Nic’s ownership of his life. The scene’s consequence is not certainty or control, but a different basis for their relationship—continued concern alongside respect for Nic’s choice.

An Open-Ended Measure of Hope

About a year after Nic leaves Los Angeles, David believes, as far as he knows, that Nic has been sober for a year again. He does not confuse hope with trust, or overlook how difficult sobriety remains. He knows what the family has already lived through and refuses to deny the possibility of another relapse; nevertheless, he continues to believe in Nic.

The departure therefore resists the shape of a completed recovery story. Nic leaves a structured program, builds a life with work, a partner, friends, and writing, and resumes contact with his father. These changes matter, but they do not settle what comes next. The ending holds independence and parental attachment together: David cannot guarantee Nic’s safety, yet he can keep talking with him and remain hopeful.