Gahan took a near-fatal overdose, Gore was hospitalised with a cerebral seizure, and Fletcher had to fly home and spend a month in a psychiatric hospital to combat depression and `obsessive compulsive disorder`.
Afterwards, Wilder left. Gore and Fletcher embraced healthier lifestyles, and Gahan carried on partying. In August 1995, after a failed sojourn in a rehabilitation clinic, he attempted suicide. The following spring, when he joined the others in New York to record a new album, his voice had gone. Gore and Fletcher told him to go home to LA and sort himself out. Instead he took to injecting `speedballs` of heroine and cocaine until, on 28 May 1996, another nearfatal overdose finally triggered the will to stop. In revealing interview with the New Musical Express, he spoke about his drug problems to such an extent that the reader was convinced of his determination to stay clean and pursue a future with his longest love affair, his band.
With Gahan abstained from drugs and alcohol, and received therapy while under a suspended jail sentence for possession. Depeche Mode completed Ultra, the 1997 UK No. 1 and US No. 4. It was, in many ways, a grim reflection on what they had been through. They refused to tour. Sales declined accordingly, but the band stood by view that a commercial dip was the least of their worries.