Without any evidence, I see no reason to give Nick either optimism or the benefit of the doubt. Rather, I see Nick in a situation like this:

As he and his Qover have started to progress through the court system, both in the CPS case and the criminal ones, it's becoming more and more difficult to manage his web of, "I got this." Nick's case wasn't thrown out at the omnibus, and learned scholars and practicing lawyers found Nick's motions pitiful. Qayla will be in for a rude awakening in 3 weeks. April wasn't able to get her charges immediately thrown out. Heck, even Aaron's revenge porn charges, which they so "masterfully" put together after Aaron refused an NDA, those charges seem to be unraveling a bit. (First an amended warrant, possibly more to come.)
So you have a mess, between that and 2 cranky crack hoes who can't get their fix (outside of booze), and Nick's own coping with no drugs. Plus the constant drug monitoring from CPS, which tells us that, at the very least, Nick's CPS case is still ongoing. Assuming the kids are back at all- I don't take Nick at his word with anything he says-, that means he's got another 5 people to keep gaslit with his outlandish takes and justifications.
This is what is taking up Nick's time now, maintaining this web of lies, keeping spinning all these tales as plates spinning on dowels.
The real pain comes when things start to come tumbling down.

It all returns to nothing, it all comes tumbling down, tumbling down, tumbling down...
It all returns to nothing, I just keep letting me down, letting me down, letting me down...
Keep on hitting yourself in the face, you fucking retard, it's not going to get any better the further down the lane you go. You chose this path, over the path of humility and redemption.