Sheff's marriage to Nic's mother Vicki collapses, and three-year-old Nic is deeply affected by the divorce and subsequent joint custody arrangement.

Sheff discovers a small bag of marijuana while packing an overnight bag for Nic.

Nic is suspended from high school after being caught buying marijuana on campus, an incident he had hidden from his parents.

Nic returns from a summer program in Paris looking gaunt and unwell, and is soon diagnosed with a stomach ulcer.

Nic quits the swim team, water polo team, and school newspaper, and begins cutting classes and hanging out with known drug users.

After disappearing for days, Nic calls Sheff to admit he is in serious trouble and has been taking methamphetamine.

Sheff drives to an alleyway to pick up an emaciated, barely recognizable Nic after a meth binge.

A rehab counselor assesses Nic and warns Sheff that Nic is mixing more drugs than people far older and is dangerously resistant to treatment.

Nic vanishes from the rehab's halfway house just days after completing his initial twenty-eight-day program.

Nic relapses while attending Hampshire College, confirming that his recovery is far from complete.

Nic confesses to Sheff that he has been using drugs throughout his entire time at home and during the college semester.

Vicki's husband calls Sheff to report that Nic has overdosed in New York and is in critical condition on life support.

Nic calls Sheff begging for help, and Sheff drives to place him in a new long-term rehabilitation program.

Sheff suffers a cerebral hemorrhage and is hospitalized, yet his only thought is to find and contact Nic.

During intensive family therapy sessions in Santa Fe, the family agrees to disentangle and let Nic's recovery belong to Nic alone.

David Sheff's memoir begins with the collapse of his first marriage, which leaves three-year-old Nic caught between two households and deeply unsettled. As Nic grows up, early warning signs of drug use escalate into full-blown meth addiction, with each disappearance worse than the last. Sheff is forced to watch his once-vibrant, athletic son deteriorate into an emaciated stranger, and desperate efforts to place Nic in rehab offer only temporary relief. Nic cycles through programs and relapses, making brief recoveries before crashing again, including a near-fatal overdose in New York that places him on life support. While Nic fights for his life, Sheff struggles to accept his own powerlessness, a reckoning that is finally forced upon him by a cerebral hemorrhage of his own. By the book's end, Sheff learns that the only path forward is to let Nic own his recovery while Sheff works to rebuild his own life.

The headline events of Nic's addiction and Sheff's journey to letting go.

Sheff meets Karen, an artist, and after six months introduces her to Nic; they immediately bond over drawing cartoons together.

Sheff and Karen have a son, Jasper, and although Nic seems enchanted by his baby half-brother, the new arrangement is complicated for him.

Sheff and Nic attend a Nirvana concert together on New Year's Eve, and Nic is later deeply distressed when Kurt Cobain commits suicide.

Nic wins first place in the Ernest Hemingway Writing Award and has a personal essay on joint custody published in Newsweek.

Nic offers to share marijuana with Sheff, and Sheff joins him in smoking it, rationalizing it as a harmless bonding moment.

Police officers arrive at the Sheff home to arrest Nic for failing to appear in court over an earlier marijuana citation.

Nic drops out of UC Berkeley after his roommate calls Sheff to report that Nic has not been seen for several days.

A drug counselor teaches Sheff and Karen Al-Anon's Three Cs: they did not cause Nic's addiction, cannot control it, and cannot cure it.

Sheff drives into San Francisco and wanders Haight-Ashbury, asking addicts and runaways on the street if they know his missing son.

An educational session at Nic's rehab uses a mobile to illustrate the addicted family dynamic, showing Sheff that he has been acting as an enabler.

Nic reveals in therapy that his addiction began in Paris, where heavy nightly drinking led to marijuana and harder drugs once he returned home.

Karen discovers that Nic has forged one of her checks, leaving her stunned, wounded, and furious.

At an aquarium with Jasper and Daisy, Sheff watches a film of a great white shark suddenly swallow a cormorant and identifies with the helpless bird.

When his girlfriend ends their relationship, Nic calls his sponsor Randy instead of his drug dealer, and they go for a long bike ride.

Sheff, Karen, Jasper, and Daisy begin family therapy at home, where Jasper and Daisy start talking about their experiences with cautious relief.

This pool traces the human relationships and significant milestones that frame Nic's story, beginning with Sheff's relationship with his new wife Karen and the birth of Nic's half-brother Jasper. Nic's early promise is evident in his award-winning writing and his close bond with his younger siblings, but his trajectory shifts as peer pressure and drug use deepen. As Nic's addiction escalates, his family's lives are increasingly consumed by his struggles — from Sheff searching the streets of San Francisco to Karen discovering that Nic has forged her checks. Support resources like Al-Anon and rehab family sessions offer Sheff painful but crucial insights into enabling, codependency, and the nature of addiction. Nic's sponsor Randy becomes a vital lifeline during later recovery, while Sheff's younger children gradually find their own voices in family therapy. Together these events show how addiction reshapes every relationship it touches.

The relationships, milestones, and family moments shaped by Nic's addiction.

A teacher reports to Sheff that Nic is sometimes depressed but generally energetic and a natural leader in class.

Against counselors' advice, Sheff chooses to be honest with Nic about his own past drug use, believing candor will encourage openness.

After Nic's school suspension, his advisor Don — a fellow surfer — befriends Nic and persuades him to join the swim and water polo teams.

Nic's therapist tells Sheff that Nic's extreme rebellion exists because Sheff made it too difficult for Nic to have anything to rebel against.

Sheff discovers that Nic has stolen cash, food, and a case of wine from the family home shortly before his eighteenth birthday.

After three days of severe withdrawal at home, Nic refuses to enter rehab and insists his meth experience was enough to teach him a lesson.

A rehab counselor warns Sheff that Nic is dangerously proud of how hardcore he is and wears his addiction like a badge of honor.

In a family therapy session at rehab, Nic publicly declares himself an addict and alcoholic, but Sheff privately admits he does not believe it.

Nic shares a journal entry from rehab that asks how he ended up there, expressing genuine disbelief that his promising high school life led to addiction.

Sheff unexpectedly speaks at an Al-Anon meeting and breaks down in tears in public, feeling both mortified and enormously relieved.

Shortly after asking Sheff for help from the hospital, Nic removes his medical equipment and checks himself out against doctor's orders.

After Nic stops returning calls, Sheff traces his son's location by monitoring his cell phone signal as it moves across several states.

Nic calls Sheff to admit he has relapsed on both meth and heroin, and Sheff urges him to contact his sponsor Randy.

Nic accidentally locks himself inside Vicki's garage while trying to rob her, and Vicki forces him to choose between rehab and the police.

Sheff begins twice-weekly therapy for himself and reaches a place where he finally feels confident he has done everything he could do for Nic.

This pool focuses on the pivotal moments where Sheff's understanding of Nic's addiction shifts and where he is forced to confront uncomfortable truths about himself. From a teacher's early hint that Nic battles depression, to Sheff's own misguided decision to smoke marijuana with his son, the early chapters reveal how denial and misplaced connection fueled the problem. Rehab sessions strip away Sheff's remaining illusions, forcing him to hear Nic declare himself an addict and to recognize that his own enabling has made things worse. The turning points grow more dramatic — Nic checking out of the hospital hours after an overdose, Nic locking himself inside Vicki's garage while trying to rob her — until the crisis finally breaks open. Sheff's public breakdown at Al-Anon and his decision to begin therapy for himself mark the slow, painful process of separation from Nic's addiction. By the book's close, Sheff has stopped trying to save Nic and has begun, at last, to save himself.

The key revelations, decisions, and turning points in Sheff's understanding of addiction.