100% that. It's all about control. He's happier with a small group of locals retards that he can control, than he was having 100k viewers who weren't as obedient. Drugs are just a way for him to feel control over his body. All the hypocrisy and lies and showing off - it's all about controlling his image.
He can never relax. He's trying to hide a very empty and weak man deep inside, and he can never afford to show it. He cannot ever let go and be genuine, he's that scared. Every aspect of Nick is controlled and manipulated, and had he been less retarded and didn't start drinking, we would maybe take few more years to find out.
I think Nick talking to the cops about how stressed he was driving the kids around all the time and constantly talking about driving them around on stream, even as they were starving and going to school in dirty clothes is incredibly telling, of all things to bring up to the cops in that moment, why that specifically?
Nick wants to control everything in his environment but when that becomes impossible, he just ignores those parts he can't control as not being his responsibility, Nick was holding up his end by driving the kids around and that's all that mattered. It's an interesting type of compartmentalization, his children could be starving and wearing dirty clothes but as long as Nick was able to drive them around then that wasn't his concern, it was his wife's responsibility and whether she was doing it or not was immaterial.
Nick thinks he can control the narrative, despite the arrest, despite the forthcoming bodycam footage and despite the upcoming trial, he's just ignoring the parts he can't control and focusing on what he has left, it's why he's been so circumspect in referring to what actually happened, beyond any legal reasoning for doing so, if he doesn't address any of it directly then his sweepers have more gaps of knowledge in which to make excuses for him.
But as you say, he's also desperately attempting to cling onto his image, he probably has it in the back of his mind somewhere that when everything drops that image will be obliterated but that doesn't matter, that's in the future and out of his control so he can comfortably ignore that for now, it's why he's reverted to a button up polo shirt instead of Jamaican tank tops etc. he's attempting to look the part and claim every advantage he can in restoring that image.