I think of it as our darkest period.” Indeed, John McVie had been busted at his Honolulu, Hawaii, home back in December 1981 for possession of drugs and firearms, and had developed a drinking problem which came to head when he suffered an alcohol-induced seizure in 1987. “We’d made the progression from what could be seen as an acceptable or excusable amount of drug use to a situation where we had all hit the wall. “Everyone was at their worst, including myself,” Lindsay Buckingham admitted to Uncut. The rest of the band were in similar shape. Having been relieved of his responsibilities as band manager, by 1984 the drummer’s taste for excess and a string of ill-advised investments – real estate, oil- and gas-drilling, cars – had left him with little option other than to file for bankruptcy. Like Nicks, his cocaine use had taken hold and, along with a penchant for reckless spending, had left him in a perilous financial position. Meanwhile, drummer Mick Fleetwood had plenty of problems of his own. I was as strong as an ox and I felt great.” Still, after successfully kicking cocaine at the clinic, Nicks was persuaded to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed the singer with Klonopin, a tranquiliser designed to curb any further impulses. “So I was on my way… I did my 28 days and I came out and I was brilliant. “I knew I was going to die and I didn’t want to die,” she recalled. I was doing a lot of drugs just to get me through to the next thing.” After a 1986 solo tour had seen her reach rock bottom, Nicks checked in to the Betty Ford Clinic for treatment. It’s so intense and so heavy, and being like Fleetwood Mac was like being in the Army. Her cocaine use had spiralled out of control, however, as she told Uncut in 2003: “When I joined the band, the rock’n’roll life was a shock to my system. Of all the bandmates’ individual projects, Stevie Nicks’ had proved by far the most successful, with her 1981 debut solo album, Bella Donna, comfortably outselling Mirage. Most significantly, however, the lifestyle that had fuelled 1977’s Rumours, and which escalated after that album’s runaway success, had started to take a serious toll on the group. Following the US tour in support of 1982’s Mirage, band members embarked upon their own projects, with Lindsey Buckingham, Mick Fleetwood, Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks all releasing solo albums across 19, while bassist John McVie kept himself busy with sailing and jam sessions with fellow-UK blues legends John Mayall and Mick Taylor. While Fleetwood Mac had endured some extremely turbulent times since forming in 1967, come the mid-80s the group were very possibly at their lowest ebb.
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