“I look like a drug addict. You can tell. I can tell,” Eric Dane wrote in his memoir, describing a 2008 relapse while he was playing Dr. Mark Sloan on Grey’s Anatomy. His weight fell to 170 pounds during the relapse.

In My Book of Days: A Memoir in Moments, he described alcohol and prescription drug abuse that changed both his appearance and his behavior at work.

“My body goes to s***. I drop to 170 [pounds], my face caves in, my eyes cloud, I look gaunt,” he wrote. “I look like a drug addict. You can tell. I can tell. My attitude on set changes.”

Dane sought addiction treatment 5 times during his years on the medical drama. He described eventually finding greater stability: “Over time, I come out improved. I do my best. I manage my addictions, I stay sober on set. Things have changed.”

Even as his health improved, he felt ready to leave the character behind. “I love Mark Sloan, but I need to quit him,” he wrote.

After 8 years in the role, he felt he’d explored what he could, but didn’t know how to leave the show.

Dane acknowledged that his addiction complicated his time on Grey’s Anatomy. He attributed his departure to the cost of keeping him in the cast: “Despite Mark Sloan’s popularity, I have become too expensive. I have become expendable.”

He later returned for a dream sequence in season 17, which aired in 2021.

He wrote the memoir before his death in February at 53, following a diagnosis of ALS, a degenerative neurological disorder.