Eric Dane's Posthumous Memoir Details Heroin Addiction and the 72-Hour Hold That Changed His Life

Eric Dane’s memoir My Book of Days is out now, published Tuesday, November 3, and it holds nothing back. The actor, who died in February at age 53 after being diagnosed with ALS in 2024, wrote about his heroin addiction in the early’90s, including the brutal first time he tried it.“Volcanic projectile vomiting,”is how he described it. He eventually became proficient at injecting the drug, then swapped it for painkillers after sinus surgery, at one point taking 40 pills a day and stealing syringes from an emergency room.

The turning point came when his friends had him placed on a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold. Dane accepted he was an addict, spent 88 days at a state-sponsored treatment center, and stayed clean for years. He wrote that he gave up drugs after five years of using because he thought he was going to die. Later, his ALS medications brought a different kind of“back on drugs”irony, one he called an essential good.

The memoir arrives two months after his death, leaving behind daughters Billie and Georgia. It’s a candid look at addiction, friendship, and the medical treatment that marked his final chapter.

What part of Dane’s story do you think will spark the most conversation? Tell us in the comments.