Drug-feuled misery and a successful, reflective recovery proccess helped open the floodgates of creativity for Rufus Wainwright.

With his first two albums, Rufus Wainwright proved he could immerse himself in a project like few other artists. He spent some three years on his debut, and a year-and-a-half writing and recording his follow-up, the 2001 release, Poses. But that trend changed dramatically when Wainwright made his latest studio effort. In just six months he wrote and recorded 30 tracks -- more than enough to fill what is planned as a two-part studio project.

The first of those discs, Want One, was released last September, while Wainwright hopes to release Want Two, featuring the remaining tracks from the session, later this year.

Wainwright gets right to the point in explaining his productivity.

"When I was in the studio for Poses, I felt like I had the time and kind of the luxury to just sort of extrapolate and philosophize and remix and kind of (take) my time, which in the end ended up being kind of tortuous," he says. "But certainly after Sept. 11 and having my own personal struggles happen, and then also hitting 30, there was just much more of a sense of urgency and (a sense) of 'Let's enjoy ourselves while we can.' And also, it's more important that the music itself serve a purpose and that it's out there doing its work."

Certainly, events like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and approaching the milestone 30th birthday would have been enough reason for Wainwright to examine his priorities. But his mention of "personal struggles" was an understated reference to a far more emphatic wake-up call for Wainwright to get his life together.

In 2002, Wainwright experienced a harrowing crash after going on a drug-filled bender. He has been quite candid in discussing his lifestyle and the indulgences that led up to his collapse.

In an Aug. 31, 2003, interview with New York Times writer Anthony DeCurtis, Wainwright, who has been openly gay since his teens, described a lifestyle in which he would use a wide range of drugs (methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy and alcohol among them) to bolster his confidence and fuel his search for casual sex with partners he often found online. Asked why he had decided to be so forthright in describing the sordid aspects of his life and his breakdown, Wainwright says he could have gone into even more detail.

"I'm of a certain mindset, which is in terms of my own personal struggles with drugs and alcohol ... that's a very private and personal issue," he says. "I'm willing to talk about it up to a certain extent. I don't really talk about what I'm doing now or what happened to me when I went to rehab. I bring it up to a certain date. It's really up to you as a person to figure it out."

As it is, Wainwright's account of his drug-fueled crash was detailed enough to provide a good idea that his life was spinning out of control.

"I institutionalized myself," says Wainwright, who checked into Hazelden, a addiction treatment center in Center City, Minn. "I thought I had come down from the drugs, but I actually hadn't. That happened two days later. I was maybe vaguely uncomfortable, and I was thinking clearly and making all these kind of real ridiculous bargaining type (things), saying 'Well, I won't do coke anymore' or 'None of my friends can do coke around me.' "

"Then two days later I really crashed," he continues. "At that point I couldn't sleep, and I went blind for like an hour and I couldn't speak. And there was just this real moment where I realized I might lose my mind. I don't know if it's coming back. And then it did come back, and then I was completely bereft and utterly, like, in tears ... every 15 minutes. So I went away. And I actually called Elton John, and he helped me out. I went into treatment, and I did that road, which I was very fortunate to do, and very fortunate to be able to afford and to take the time off. Anybody who feels that they might need treatment (should) probably go get it because it really works. You feel a lot better afterward."

Wainwright spent a month at Hazelden and emerged in a much better state of mind. He dove into songwriting and found that music and lyrics were coming forth at an astonishing clip. (The new songs, incidentally, hint at but don't spell out the turbulence of his life.)

"This one was a real kind of shocker in terms of what was spewing out of my mouth," Wainwright says. "Some gentle spirit or something told me, you know, 'Concentrate on your own life, get your house in order, and the music will take care of itself. Forget about the music for a moment.' And I really did that, and it really paid off in the end because I found when I returned to the piano and the guitar ... there were songs that had almost written themselves."

Want One finds Wainwright once again embracing the grander orchestral tendencies of his debut. The results are compelling, as songs like "Oh What A World," "14th Street" and "Beautiful Child" offer near-symphonic grandeur, while the slightly less embellished production on songs like "Movies of Myself," "Go or Go Ahead" and "I Don't Know What It Is" highlight his craftsmanship and timeless Pop appeal.

Wainwright acknowledges that he wanted to return to the more elaborate musical settings of his debut.

"I very much can't deny the fact any longer that I am an opera queen, and I'm really kind of used to dramatic gestures and full-bodied sounds in the music that I personally listen to," Wainwright says.