Nic is sent to New York for detox after family friends visiting San Francisco meet him and offer him a place to withdraw from drugs. The move begins with an intervention arranged by Vicki, but it is neither a simple rescue nor a resolution: Nic uses methamphetamine once more before the flight, then enters a period of withdrawal and psychiatric care. His later move to Brooklyn and return to work suggest a change in circumstances, while his continued belief that other substances are safe leaves the prospect of recovery unsettled.

Background and Arrangement

By this point, Nic has disappeared and reappeared repeatedly. He keeps sporadic contact with Vicki, but not with his father, the narrator. When old family friends visiting San Francisco happen to be available, Vicki arranges a meeting and pleads with Nic to go to their hotel. The practical opening for the move comes through family connections: the friends can offer him somewhere to stay and a chance to detox in New York City.

Nic goes to meet them, but his condition initially prevents him from entering the hotel lobby. A security guard agrees to call the hosts only after Nic persuades him to do so. The friends then see that Nic is severely debilitated and that his arms bear track marks. Their offer of a place in New York is prompted by what they encounter, and they urge him to come so he can withdraw there. The meeting makes the extent of his drug use visible to people who know the family, rather than leaving it as a distant report passed between parents.

Agreement and Departure

The account does not settle why Nic accepts. His father considers several possibilities: perhaps Nic has tired of life on the streets, perhaps he feels frightened, or perhaps the prospect of moving to New York City appeals to him. These are presented as possibilities, not as an explanation Nic confirms. His agreement therefore marks a consequential opening, but not proof that he has made a stable decision to stop using.

Before leaving, Nic runs off once more to obtain drugs. His dealer gives him a large quantity of methamphetamine as a going-away present, and Nic snorts it before boarding a cross-country flight. The sequence sharply qualifies the apparent break with his previous life: he accepts a route toward detox while still using, and the departure itself takes place after another episode of drug use. The friends’ offer changes where he will be, but does not immediately end the pattern that brought the crisis about.

Withdrawal and Its Immediate Cost

In New York City, the friends persuade Nic to see a psychiatrist who specializes in addiction. The doctor prescribes sleeping pills, and Nic sleeps for most of a week. He also undergoes physical withdrawal and experiences severe emotional distress. When he calls his father, he describes remorse, shame, disbelief, a wish to use, and a wish to die. The father says that he loves Nic and is sorry the experience is so difficult, while acknowledging that he does not know what else to offer. Their exchange conveys care without suggesting that a parent’s words can take away the symptoms or guarantee what Nic will do next.

About a week later, the narrator receives a call from a bank about a five-hundred-dollar check written on an account he had closed. He identifies the incident as another betrayal and describes the emotional conflict of discovering that he has been robbed by his son. This aftermath is not a medical consequence of detox, but it belongs to the same period of crisis: even as Nic is away from the streets and receiving psychiatric attention, the family remains exposed to the consequences of his behavior. The event therefore shifts the immediate setting without repairing trust between Nic and his father.

Brooklyn and the Uncertain Aftermath

After about a month, Nic calls sounding less desolate. Vicki helps him move into an apartment in Brooklyn, and he gets a job. Having earlier dismissed college, he now judges minimum-wage work even more negatively and says he plans to return to school and manage it on his own. The account records these as intentions and new arrangements, not as evidence that he has already returned to school or secured lasting stability. Compared with the hotel meeting and the withdrawal week, however, the apartment and job show a concrete shift toward ordinary daily responsibilities.

Nic tells his father he knows he cannot use crystal again, but says his doctor considers marijuana and an occasional glass of wine acceptable because they help him remain even. The narrator is alarmed rather than reassured: he cites a University of California, Los Angeles study reporting that an addict who smokes marijuana or drinks alcohol is twelve times more likely to relapse on methamphetamine. The number is presented as a reason for concern, not as a prediction that Nic will certainly relapse. His claim about abstaining from crystal and his acceptance of other substances leave a tension at the center of the aftermath: a move, a job, and an intention to study coexist with a risky understanding of what recovery requires.

Significance

The episode belongs to a period when methamphetamine use was spreading beyond its earlier concentration in western cities, and experts described the drug as an increasingly pervasive national problem. A 2006 national survey found that 40 percent of drug-enforcement agencies considered methamphetamine their most significant drug problem. Treatment admissions for methamphetamine addiction rose from 28,000 annually in 1993 to about 150,000 in 2005. Those figures establish a broader public-health context for Nic’s crisis; they do not explain his individual history or make his move to New York a typical outcome.

The narrator also resists assigning addiction to a single background or cause. He observes that people encountered in rehabilitation and mutual-help settings come from varied economic circumstances, and concludes that addiction cannot be reduced to poverty, privilege, education, race, or geography. In this account, the same caution applies to the New York departure: the friends’ offer provides help, but neither the offer nor Nic’s agreement ensures what follows. Elsewhere, the narrator recalls hearing people in recovery describe forced treatment as lifesaving, alongside accounts of parents whose efforts did not prevent a child’s death. He comes to regard treatment as a way of interrupting cycles of use, not as a guarantee. Nic’s move thus matters as a real change in his immediate circumstances and a chance to begin again, while its uncertain outcome preserves the book’s distinction between offering help and being able to control another person’s recovery.