I'm really no longer going to be the guy who wrote A Few Good Men - I'm going to be the guy who got in drug trouble

Aaron Sorkin

Sorkin was arrested at Burbank Airport in Los Angeles on 15 April after security staff discovered a bag containing marijuana, rock cocaine or crack, and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Sorkin pleaded guilty in June at the Superior Court of California to two felony counts of drug possession - one for hallucinogenic mushrooms and one for cocaine - and one misdemeanour count for marijuana.

Give up

He was ordered to give up drugs or face up to three years and eight months in prison and fines of more than �7,000.

He was sentenced to a two-year probation period during which he must also submit to random drug tests.

"It was stupid," Sorkin told TV Guide. "I had just been to the wrap party the night before. It was a stupid way of celebrating that the pressure was off."

In 1995 Sorkin was given treatment for a daily crack habit at the Hazelden Institute in Minnesota. He says he has used crack fewer than five times in the last two years.

Sorkin is paid $15m by Warner Bros TV

"There's no way I could be writing high and not have people know," he told Talk magazine.

But he added: "it's been a summer of bad publicity for the show, and it's almost entirely my fault."

The bad publicity includes a bitter pay dispute with four members of the cast and rumours that star actor Martin Sheen would quit the show if Sorkin did not quit drugs.

Sorkin insists that Sheen told him, "in the most loving possible way that I was more important to him than the show, and that he would quit the show to help me.

"And somehow this was turned into a story that we were having a fistfight and that he had threatened to quit the show unless I went to Betty Ford."

Relapse

Sorkin, now working on a new series of The West Wing, separated from his wife after his arrest. He insists they parted on good terms.

The West Wing won a record nine Emmys in 2000

Discussing the possibility of a relapse, he told Talk: "This has been such a public nightmare for me, there's no possibility that I would mess with this or take any chances."

Sorkin - who wrote the films A Few Good Men and The American President - has no illusions about the damaging effect of the drug arrest on his reputation.

"I'm really no longer going to be the guy who wrote A Few Good Men. I'm going to be the guy who got in drug trouble," Sorkin said.

In July 2000 he signed a four-year deal with Warner Bros TV for a reported $15m (�10.5m) - the first time he has signed an exclusive long-term production deal.