Lin’s heroin withdrawal and recovery turns abstinence into a test of endurance sustained by both personal resolve and another person’s care. After Karla leaves, Lin faces the withdrawal at a house by the sea, with Nazeer keeping watch and Abdel Khader Khan returning to see him. The first days bring him close to abandoning the effort; instead, he accepts help, passes through the worst of the symptoms, and begins rebuilding his strength. Recovery here is neither immediate nor solitary: it proceeds through days of distress, practical care, and a gradual return to purposeful activity.

Commitment and the First Days

Before leaving, Karla tells Lin that she has promised Abdel Khader Khan he will complete withdrawal at the house and still be there when she returns in a couple of months. Abdel Khader Khan doubts Lin can endure it, predicting that he will leave to obtain heroin as soon as the withdrawal begins. Karla stakes a thousand dollars on Lin making it. The bet makes Lin’s recovery a matter of confidence placed in him by someone who expects him to succeed, even while acknowledging how uncertain that outcome is.

When Lin wakes, he is already unwell, alert, cold, and in need of heroin. Abdel Khader Khan is beside him, while Nazeer remains near the entrance. The scene establishes the close supervision surrounding the attempt: Lin is not left alone with either the withdrawal or the means to act on his craving. Two full days and nights into the ordeal, Lin believes he will not make it. The early digestive symptoms have eased, but pain and anxiety are intensifying. The possibility of ending the distress by obtaining heroin becomes an insistent temptation, and his confidence in continuing gives way to immediate fear of failure.

Nazeer’s Care and Lin’s Decision

At that crisis point, Lin takes steps to prevent himself from leaving. He moves Nazeer’s cot toward the window, tears a sheet into strips, and uses them to secure his ankles and one wrist to a bed. He then asks Nazeer, without speaking, to bind his other wrist. The request is a deliberate act of self-protection: Lin recognizes that his resolve alone may not hold, and makes Nazeer part of the barrier between craving and relapse.

Nazeer understands the request and binds Lin to the bed. For two days and nights he stays close, tending to him steadily. He offers physical comfort, watches for moments when Lin needs the gag removed, and replaces it when Lin signals that he wants to keep his cries from being heard. The care is disciplined but responsive; Nazeer does not simply leave Lin restrained, but attends to changing needs and remains present through the worst of the crisis. Lin’s survival of this period depends on that constancy as well as on the choice he made to ask for help.

When Lin signals that he is ready, Nazeer removes the gag and releases the ties one at a time. He gives Lin a mild chicken, barley, and tomato broth, feeding it to him by spoon. The meal marks a small but decisive change in the scene: Lin is no longer only being kept from leaving to seek heroin, but is beginning to accept nourishment and care. Nazeer smiles for the first time, making the transition from emergency supervision to cautious recovery visible without suggesting that the ordeal is over.

The Course of Withdrawal

Lin describes withdrawal as lasting about two weeks, with the first five days the most difficult. Getting through those five days, and reaching the sixth morning without drugs, gives him a stronger sense that he is clean and can continue. The next eight to ten days bring gradual improvement rather than a sudden release: cramps lessen, nausea passes, and fever and chills subside. Sleep remains difficult, so recovery continues to demand endurance after the most acute symptoms have eased.

During the long nights when he cannot sleep, Lin stays standing until exhaustion makes him collapse into sleep. He likens himself during this period to the Standing Babas, the ascetics known for remaining on their feet. The comparison gives the physical strain a recurring image of stubborn persistence, but it also emphasizes how little comfort recovery offers at first. Eventually the withdrawal passes. Lin emerges dazed and wounded by the experience, yet glad to be alive; the ending is survival, not a claim that the process has left him untouched.

Recovery and Rebuilding

By the sixth day, Lin is walking with Nazeer for exercise and fresh air. At first the walks are slow and short, and he returns after fifteen minutes. By the twelfth day, when his first sarcastic jokes prompt Nazeer to begin training him, Lin can walk the length of the beach. The change is measured through modest signs—walking farther, joking again, and accepting a new routine—rather than through a single dramatic declaration of recovery.

The training develops into a sustained daily regimen. Lin builds up to twenty sets of thirty push-ups, with a minute’s rest between sets, followed by five hundred sit-ups, a five-kilometre run, and a forty-minute swim in the sea. After almost three months, he is fit and strong. The routine extends recovery beyond the immediate task of staying away from heroin: it gives his days structure and makes physical strength something he can rebuild through repeated effort. The sequence from restraint to walking to demanding exercise shows recovery as a process with stages, each dependent on the one before it.

The episode also changes the meaning of Nazeer’s role. His steady presence during withdrawal becomes the basis for a closer relationship, and his later decision to train Lin follows the trust formed in the crisis. Lin’s recovery is therefore both an individual achievement and a shared undertaking: he chooses to endure, while Nazeer helps make endurance possible. Karla’s wager supplies an earlier act of faith, but the immediate work belongs to Lin and the companion who stays beside him.