Eric Dane laid bare the full scope of his drug use in a posthumous memoir set for release next month.
The ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ star, who died in February at 53, wrote that he sampled nearly every substance on the market during a self-described “dark period” in his twenties. In an excerpt from ‘My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments’ published by People, Dane catalogued his usage in stark terms.
“I call that my dark period,” he wrote. “I auditioned for a few roles, got cast in some, but mainly I did drugs. I got high, I got stoned, I got wasted, I shot up, I freebased, I did every drug imaginable.”
He then provided what he called a “partial list” of substances: “Booze, pot, acid. Heroin. Cocaine. Mushrooms. Mescaline. Crystal meth. Crack. Painkillers. Fistfuls of painkillers. Buckets of painkillers. Vicodin, Percocet, OxyContin, you name it, everything on the market. All the benzos. Xanax. Valium. All the muscle relaxers. All the uppers. Adderall. Ritalin.”
He added: “I don’t think there’s a drug I didn’t try.”
Dane had nearly abandoned acting before landing his career-defining role as Dr. Mark Sloan on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in 2005. The part made him a household name, but the spotlight brought renewed struggles. Around 2008, at the peak of his fame, he herniated a cervical disc during a workout and relapsed on painkillers. His weight plummeted to 170 pounds, and colleagues noticed him growing withdrawn on set. He attempted to avoid arriving impaired, he wrote, though he could not always manage it.
Show creator Shonda Rhimes intervened repeatedly, pulling him aside to say she would “take care” of him if he needed time away. Dane entered rehab during production hiatuses, going five times over the course of the series.
Toward the end of season 8 in 2012, Rhimes informed him he would not return. Dane attributed the decision to finances rather than addiction. “Despite Mark Sloan’s popularity, I have become too expensive,” he wrote. “I have become expendable.” He noted that his substance abuse “didn’t help” the situation.
His subsequent starring role came on TNT’s ‘The Last Ship.’ During filming in 2017, he checked into a treatment center for depression, halting production for six weeks. His marriage to Rebecca Gayheart collapsed the following year. Gayheart, 53, filed for divorce in 2018 after 14 years, though the pair remained close and never finalized the paperwork.
Dane’s health decline began abruptly. On January 7, 2024, he wrote, he suddenly lost the ability to work chopsticks with his right hand while eating sushi with his children. After nine months of medical investigation, Dr. Mark Terrelonge at the University of California, San Francisco, diagnosed him with ALS.
He called Gayheart immediately after receiving the news. “It’s what we feared,” he told her.
The disease’s physical toll became unmistakable during a later vacation in Mexico, when Dane found himself unable to swim. His youngest daughter, Georgia, and her friend pulled him from the water. He recounted telling Gayheart afterward: “I can’t swim, Rebecca.”
Dane directed a message to his two children in the memoir’s pages. “Never give up,” he wrote. “No matter what happens to you, fight until your last breath.”
He is survived by Billie, 16, and Georgia, 14, whom he shared with Gayheart.
‘My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments’ is scheduled for publication on November 3.