“Back to the Future” Star Christopher Lloyd Reveals Years of Cocaine and Alcohol Addiction in Candid New Memoir

Christopher Lloyd is taking readers back to a chapter of his life that never made it into the movies. The beloved Back to the Future star, 88, opens up about years of cocaine and alcohol addiction in In My Own Time: A Memoir, released October 27. His account traces the beginning of his cocaine use to a night out at a Los Angeles comedy club in the 1970s.

According to memoir excerpts reported by Page Six, Lloyd accompanied a woman he had just met to her car, where he tried cocaine.

"I was hooked almost immediately," he writes.

Cocaine, alcohol and marijuana subsequently became entrenched in his life. Lloyd maintains, however, that he never performed onstage or on camera while under the influence.

One particularly frightening recollection involves an argument with his then-girlfriend while he was intoxicated. After spending the night elsewhere, Lloyd returned home, found himself locked out and punched windows.

He describes severe blood loss that required plasma, followed by surgery and physical therapy for his injured hand. The episode adds a sobering dimension to the life of an actor audiences associate with some of Hollywood's most exuberant characters.

Recovery took time. Lloyd entered rehab in 1993 and stayed for five weeks, but acknowledges experiencing relapses afterward.

"Some years later on April 1," he writes, he became sober for the final time. The published coverage does not identify the year.

The memoir also reaches beyond addiction, revisiting an isolated childhood on a Connecticut estate, his early commitment to theater and the career that brought him roles in Taxi, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and the Back to the Future trilogy. Published by Grand Central Publishing, the 256-page book promises a closer look at the observant, private man behind those larger-than-life performances.

For fans who know every Doc Brown mannerism, these revelations offer something less familiar: Lloyd telling his own story, including the painful passages.