Narcotics Anonymous

Narcotics Anonymous is presented in the book through its meetings, which form one strand of the support surrounding Nic Sheff’s treatment and recovery. The account shows the organization present both in an intensive hospital program and in the recurring routines Nic reports from college, but does not describe its formal structure or claim that attending meetings can prevent relapse.

Place in the Treatment Program

At St. Helena Hospital, Narcotics Anonymous meetings are part of a structured program that also includes exercise, yoga, swimming, consultations with physicians and a psychiatrist, and education about the brain chemistry of addiction. The program holds daily Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings, placing peer meetings within a broader schedule of clinical care, learning, and family involvement. The narrator allows himself only a sliver of hope at this stage: knowing where Nic is brings relief, but does not make him confident that rehabilitation will last.

Meetings Beyond the Hospital

When Nic attends Hampshire College, meetings remain part of the support he reports to his father. He has sessions with a drug and alcohol counselor recommended by the school, attends Alcoholics Anonymous, and later tells his father about Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings he attends throughout the week. The distinction in the account matters: Nic’s sponsor is connected to an Alcoholics Anonymous group, while Narcotics Anonymous is among the meetings he says he attends. These recurring reports help the narrator’s anxiety ease as Nic settles into classes and new friendships.

That apparent stability proves fragile. About a month later, Nic stops returning his father’s calls, prompting the narrator to suspect that he has relapsed. The book does not attribute the relapse to Narcotics Anonymous or suggest that meetings were ineffective in themselves; rather, the sequence places meeting attendance among several supports that coexist with the possibility of renewed drug use.

Narrative Significance and Limits

The references establish Narcotics Anonymous as a recurring element in the recovery landscape around Nic, not as the subject of a detailed institutional account. The book gives concrete settings and frequency—daily meetings during the St. Helena program and meetings throughout the week at college—but says little about the organization’s practices or internal life. Its significance is therefore chiefly narrative: alongside counseling, hospital treatment, and family participation, meetings represent ongoing efforts to build support without guaranteeing a cure or a straight path forward.