It's along the same lines as the type of romanticizing you might see when certain addicts (recovering or otherwise) discuss their experiences with one another. It occasionally becomes a game of one-upmanship where each is discussing miserable experiences with a subtext of pride as if to strengthen their appearance as hardcore or interesting or who knows. The behavior is by no means limited to or universally true of addicts, but there's certainly a type and it comes through in Bukowski's writing. This flavor of romanticizing isn't necessarily intended to inspire envy, but awe.
That's not the kind of romanticizing the parent comment described with "reading about a legendary musician's struggle with heroin addiction while they were writing the most profound music of their career does not evoke the same aesthetic as seeing a homeless addict shoot up on the sidewalk".
Bukowski is the guy who would more often write about the misery of his life as the latter. I agree your example is a lot better. One-upmanship of degeneracy was there at times no doubt and I'm sure he exaggerated some events. But I think the reason he will stand the test of time is that he had many authentic sides to show in his writing. Some of them quite vulnerable. And if memory serves me right, the theme of the dullness of life came up more than once too. If it were mostly or even too much one-upmanship, that would wear thin very quickly. There's clearly a lot more to his writing than that.
Really though it comes down to how much his lifestyle appealed to me the reader. Almost not at all. I can think of other authors who have been far better at romanticizing a degenerate lifestyle and made me feel like I wanted a part of it.
