Former VH1 celebrity and famous rapper Flavor Flav is sharing serious conversations about his troubled childhood and cocaine addiction battle in a new book "Flavor Flav: The Icon The Memoir."

Among the attention-grabbing information in Flavor Flav's book is the financial cost of the cocaine addiction, which spanned six years and is estimated to cost the musician more than $5.7 million. Daily, Flavor Flav said he had spent more than $2,600 on cocaine purchases - prompting the rapper to state in interviews that the amount of money he spent on cocaine is incredible.

Fears about how his cocaine use was impacting his career and music ambitions helped lead Flavor Flav, whose legal name is William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., to begin laying a foundation for recovery. His interest in film and television were part of the motivating factors, along with a move from New York to California. Flavor Flav said he didn't want to be known for going from neighborhood to neighborhood in the drug trade.

Flavor Flav has become a well-known celebrity on reality television and is a member of rap group Public Enemy. In his memoir, he addresses sexual encounters at a very young age and other experiences. His past includes time at recovery clinics such as the Betty Ford Clinic and the Center for Recovery in Long Island.

Called musically gifted, Flavor Flav could play multiple instruments as a child and was part of his church choir. However, the rapper's childhood was also marked with law encounters, including accidentally igniting a house on fire and leaving high school during his junior year. Flavor Flav's legal history includes jail sentences for both burglary and robbery crimes.

In interviews, Flavor Flav has said he battled drug addiction for 18 years - and openly calls the drug use an enormous mistake. Trying to do what others were doing, especially his friends, was a factor in his drug experimentation, the rapper said. He also said he hopes his experiences battling and surviving addiction will help others to avoid making similar choices concerning drugs. Flavor Flav's eight children and his grandchildren may not read the book until they're more mature, says the celebrity, because the content related to drugs and sex are brutally honest and without reservation.

While Flavor Flav continues to address the high costs of drug addiction and to work through recovery, he becomes part of a list of musical celebrities known for multi-million dollar drug expenses, including Glenn Hughes of the band Deep Purple and Stevie Nicks.