Depeche Mode rocker Dave Gahan is angry about rumours his heroin and cocaine drug overdose in 1996 was a suicide attempt - because he didn't want to die. The former hellraiser was pronounced clinically dead after combining the drugs - known as a speedball - in a Los Angeles hotel room. He was revived by paramedics and survived, and has spent the last eleven years convincing doubters he didn't intend to kill himself. Now 45, Gahan tells Hustler magazine, "I'm painfully aware that was not what I was trying to do. All I was trying to do was disappear for a while, and that became a lost weekend." Despite dodging death, Gahan, is convinced his will to live helped him survive the overdose. The now-clean star explains, "(I survived) because I wanted to. Booze and drugs can be fun for a while, and then they're not. That's just the way it goes. There's nothing new. "What I thought I wanted to do in my life was escape constantly from whatever it was that was going on. That is not the case anymore. I'm here and I really enjoy the challenge of life."