The drugs clearly aren't stopping the destruction of brain tissue,

The brain becomes a kind of sanctuary where the drugs can't follow,

I wouldn't recommend sex, drugs or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.

"I went to Japan not thinking I was coming back...I got on that plane, and I packed real light. I was so addicted to self-destruction, I think more than the drugs, there's something very romantic about it. I didn't pack anything. I packed show clothes...I thought I was gonna die. I thought I wasn't coming back.

We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.
Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.