Nic undergoes detox and transfers to a New Mexico rehabilitation center

Nic Sheff’s transfer to treatment in New Mexico begins with a fragile agreement and nearly collapses before he reaches the airport. When admission to Hazelden in Oregon falls through, David Sheff and Vicki redirect him to a hospital for detox, then search across the country for a longer-term program. Nic’s eventual departure for Santa Fe is not a clean resolution but a hard-won return to treatment: a moment of acceptance inside a recurring illness, carried forward by family effort and uncertainty.

The decision to seek treatment

The transfer takes shape after Nic has relapsed and David is bracing for another upheaval. Walking through a crowded block on a Saturday night, David recalls moving through life on guard, as if anticipating the next earthquake. He calls Z., prepared for whatever news comes. She hands the phone to Nic, and David tells him there appears to be a bed at Hazelden in Oregon, but that he must speak with a counselor the next morning.

Nic initially resists. He says he can get sober on his own, and David reminds him that this approach has already failed. After a short exchange, Nic concedes: “I know, I know. All right. Yeah, I have to go. I know.” The agreement matters because it follows bravado rather than replacing it: Nic sounds resigned, and also bewildered by the need for help. He says he had believed that wanting sobriety, and being in love, would be enough to keep him sober. Their failure to protect him from relapse frightens him; he says he is beginning to understand what it means to be an addict.

On Monday, Nic speaks with a Hazelden counselor and tells David afterward that he is going to Oregon. David books a flight despite the possibility that Nic will not show up. Nic then reports that he is packed, and Z. drives him to the airport. The apparent plan seems to have held—but only until David calls Hazelden to confirm that someone will meet Nic when he arrives.

The Oregon plan falls apart

Hazelden has no record of Nic arriving and, after David is transferred to a supervising counselor, David learns that Nic has not been approved for admission. The news comes while Nic is already on his way to the airport. David protests that Nic is en route; the counselor asks why he is going when admission has not been approved. The sudden mismatch between Nic’s departure and the program’s decision turns a planned transfer into an urgent search for somewhere safe to take him.

David calls Jace, who makes inquiries and returns with the name of a hospital in the San Fernando Valley where Nic can detox. David contacts the doctor who runs the hospital and arranges admission. He calls Z. again, explains that the airport plan has changed, and gives her the hospital’s address. The immediate aim is no longer to get Nic to a residential program but to get him safely through detox, if he will go.

After midnight, Z. drops Nic at the hospital. He receives medication to begin detoxing, with the expectation that he will sleep through much of the first few days. The nurse explains the alternative: withdrawal without medication can bring acute pain, depression, distress, and hopelessness severe enough that people seek drugs to escape it. The nurses reassure David that Nic is doing all right, but one warns that, given the quantity and variety of drugs in his system, it is a miracle he made it to the hospital and that his body might not have survived another month.

Choosing a longer-term program

While Nic is in the hospital, David and Vicki begin another round of searching for what should follow detox. David consults Richard Rawson again; Rawson asks colleagues and friends for advice. David also checks programs recommended by Hazelden and seeks suggestions from the doctor treating Nic. Over several days, David and Vicki make dozens of calls, speak with admissions representatives, and search websites. The advice conflicts, and cost narrows their choices: some programs charge forty thousand dollars a month, while the experts agree Nic will need many months of treatment. David and Vicki cannot afford that rate.

The search offers no dependable system for making the choice. Some program representatives strike David as aggressively sales-oriented. One option Hazelden has recommended is more affordable and sounds suitable until someone describes it as a punitive, hard-core program where breaking rules can mean cutting grass with scissors. David and Vicki also hold conference calls with intake staff at facilities in Florida, Mississippi, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Massachusetts. Their eventual choice is a program in Santa Fe, but making a choice does not bring certainty. David recalls Rawson’s description of treatment selection as a “non-system comprised of rumor, marketing bullshit, best guesses and fiscal opportunism.” They have made the best decision they can from the information available, without knowing whether it is the right one.

Nic calls again to argue that he should remain in Los Angeles and, at most, attend an outpatient program. David tells him that some part of him already knows he needs to go somewhere and stay until he has done the difficult work of understanding what is wrong and what he can do. Nic responds that he lives with the situation too. The conversation breaks through the practiced exchanges: Nic is in a hospital hallway, leaning against a wall, while David cries on the kitchen floor. Before they hang up, Nic says he cannot believe this is his life, then adds that he will do whatever it takes.

The journey to New Mexico

Early Tuesday morning, Vicki picks Nic up from the hospital in the valley and drives him to the airport. She persuades a security agent to let her through the checkpoint so she can escort him to the gate and onto the flight to New Mexico. The practical care of this departure is specific and immediate: she stays with him through the airport and sees him board rather than leaving the journey to an uncertain handoff.

From the lounge, Vicki calls David to say Nic is on the plane and it is backing away from the jetway. David imagines Vicki looking out the window with her phone to her ear and Nic aboard: frail, opaque, and ill, yet still his beloved son. The image holds both the seriousness of Nic’s condition and the persistence of their bond. The plane’s departure marks the completion of the transfer, not proof that treatment will succeed or that relapse is behind him.

Recurrence, care, and uncertainty

The episode belongs to a pattern of crisis and attempted intervention. Earlier, another four-day period of fear and David’s urgent search for a program had made plain how quickly concern could become a race against losing Nic. Now the family again has to locate immediate care, negotiate treatment options, and act without assurance that any program will provide a lasting answer. Nic’s assent is real, but it does not erase the instability that preceded it or guarantee what follows.

David’s understanding of care is shaped by contradictions he has learned to live with: an addict may not be responsible for the condition that overwhelms him and yet remains the person who must undertake the work of recovery. The boundary between helping and taking responsibility for Nic’s choices has to be drawn, and redrawn, rather than settled once and for all. David’s own cerebral hemorrhage did not remove his worry about Nic; afterward, he describes accepting that worry as part of the love he no longer wishes to erase. That perspective gives the airport scene its weight. Sending Nic toward treatment is an act of support, not control, and the family can accompany him to the gate without knowing what the next stage will bring.