Finally, an explanation of why so many of us get high — from "Dr. Ecstasy," the chemist who helped make it all possible.

Though I was a consumer of some of his products a long time ago, I didn't know of him until he died and his obituary appeared last week in The New York Times. Dr. Alexander Shulgin was 88.

He invented at least 200 chemical compounds that alter the mind (which explains why Shulgin was alternately known as a wizard or a rogue, a legitimate scientist or a counterculture hero), including "stimulants, depressants, aphrodisiacs, 'empathogens,' convulsants, drugs that alter hearing, drugs that slow one's sense of time, drugs that speed it up, drugs that trigger violent outbursts, drugs that deaden emotion — in short a veritable lexicon of tactile and emotional experience," according to the Times.

There was nothing illegal in any of his work, in part because the substances didn't exist until he created them. And in fact, often his aim was to make drugs to treat other problems, including senility, hypertension, mental illness and nicotine cravings. But once his substances were produced and people began to misuse them to get high, the Drug Enforcement Administration took notice and designated them as dangerous drugs to be tightly regulated. Still, he continued to make other chemical cocktails and secured many patents for his drugs.

What caught my eye in his obit what his fascination with the effect these substances had on the human mind, mine included. I'd never heard it described this way:

"I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit," he said. "We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability."

In other words, the mind and spirit, like space, is a frontier — to be explored, discovered and contemplated, over and over again, even endlessly, like the popular question with infinite answers, "What is life?"

Of course, that's no excuse to alter the mind with substances to the detriment of everything else that matters in life, including precious life itself. Most people delve into the expanses of their being without a chemical; they pray or meditate, read a provoking book or write in a journal, contemplate a sunrise or listen to a baby's breath.

Then there are those who facilitate the journey with vehicles built by Shulgin or with more "natural" alternators, such as marijuana and alcohol. The effect is the same: a heightened awareness of what lies deeper in the spirit or the mind. It's noteworthy for a while, but it's not worth it after a while. Eventually, this group sticks closer to home or delves deeper without a substance to alter the body.

The rest of us are the small percentage of people who start out looking for the same thing but lose our way because our euphoric discoveries overwhelm our ability to turn back before we've strayed too far. On the journey, we think we find our place, like heaven or nirvana or a tropical island all our own, only we like it so much we want to stay. But to stay means to take more and more of what took us there, and no brain and no spirit can be flooded with substances without eventually drowning in them. Addicts and alcoholics take drugs or drink because we aren't comfortable in our own skin. We don't fit where we are. So we alter our existence with a power greater than our ability to do it on our own. Except that the substances are so powerful we lose our ability to know reality, no matter the consequences.

Addiction is an illness with origins in a mis-wired brain and a soul sickness that makes us feel "dis-eased." No wonder Shulgin's success had such a profound effect on people like me.

William Moyers is the vice president of public affairs and community relations for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and the author of "Broken," his best-selling memoirs. His book "Now What? An Insider's Guide to Addiction and Recovery" was published last year. Please send your questions to William Moyers at wmoyers@hazelden.org. To find out more about William Moyers and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.