E! Online reports that Garrison, 28, left the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, California—about three hours north of Los Angeles—at approximately 3:45 Wednesday morning, and was greeted by friends and family outside of the facility.

Garrison's next stop will be an in-patient rehabilitation center, where he will receive treatment and shorten his probation period.

The actor was sentenced to 40 months in prison in November 2007, but proved to be a model prisoner and earned enough good-behavior credits to be released after serving only about half of his sentence.

"He received half time—meaning that for every day that he participated in a rehabilitative program, he got a day off his sentence," says Terry Thornton, spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

At the time of his crash in Beverly Hills, Garrison was found to have cocaine in his system, and registered a blood-alcohol level more than two times higher than California's legal limit of .08 percent.

Have your say in the comments section: Do you think Garrison's early release was warranted, and will he be able to put his acting career back together after this?