Charlie Sheen has maintained his sobriety for nearly eight years — an achievement he says he’s proud of after decades of public battles with addiction.
The actor, 60, is pulling back the curtain on his turbulent past in a new memoir, “The Book of Sheen.” In it, the star traces his meteoric rise to fame with films like “Platoon” and “Wall Street,” his reign as the highest-paid star on television and the unraveling that followed. Sheen is also featured in a new Netflix docuseries, “aka Charlie Sheen,” where he reflects on his recovery.
“I’ve decided to move through at this really amazing stage,” Sheen told Fox News Digital. “Dope and booze, at those levels, that’s a young person’s game. That’s not for us AARP types.”
CHARLIE SHEEN ADMITS HE’S BEEN CELIBATE FOR NEARLY A DECADE SINCE GETTING SOBER
“There really aren’t challenges with sobriety,” he said. “I’m not connected to the people of the past … If I were to go back to those choices to numb myself, get out of my head, or feel differently, I have so much evidence that it’s only going to make things worse and more complicated. I’d suddenly be steeped in shame. And with that comes deceit and manipulation. All that c— doesn’t fit in anymore.”
After high school, Sheen followed in his father’s footsteps and pursued a career in Hollywood. Following a small role in 1986’s “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” Sheen quickly rose to superstardom.
During the 1980s and 1990s, he developed an insatiable appetite for drugs, alcohol and sex. He grew reliant on cocaine and turned to liquor to calm his stutter. At one point, Sheen recalled how he was cut off by the cartel because they suspected he was dealing.
In 2003, Sheen landed a starring role in the sitcom “Two and a Half Men.” The show made him the highest-paid male actor on television, reportedly earning him $1.8 million per episode during its eighth season, according to The Associated Press. Production was halted in 2011 when Sheen entered rehab for the third time. That season was eventually canceled, and Sheen’s contract was terminated.
Sheen described being at the center of seven family interventions, countless affairs, legal battles and messy divorces. In 2015, Sheen publicly revealed he is HIV-positive.
He finally got sober for good in December 2017.
WATCH: CHARLIE SHEEN TALKS GETTING SOBER: I HAD TO DO IT FOR MYSELF AND MY FAMILY
“When I finally decided that I was going to make AA a place that I passed through and not wound up in, that’s when I felt like I was the captain of my own ship,” said Sheen. “That’s when I knew that I was going to make a promise to myself and honor it.”
Sheen said he couldn’t recall a moment when he realized that chasing extremes could kill him.
“I was never a guy that saw this stuff as life-threatening,” he explained. “If I did, I probably never would’ve done it. That’s the reason why I never did heroin, because I knew that I would do it once and die or do it every day for the rest of my life until I died. There is that first intervention on my dad’s 50th birthday. That was a moment where I was actually grateful for that intervention.”
“And then later on … I was married to Denise [Richards]. The show was going great. We had a nice new house and a baby on the way. And then I just made the completely ill-advised decision to start taking pills because I could do them. Nobody can smell pills on your breath.”
“How stupid that was,” he chuckled to himself. “That turned into a thing.”
“I would get away for a minute, and then I’d pull it back. … It was a constant back and forth of either coming out of detox or looking forward to the next dose. And if you’re constantly living between those two moments, then you’re never really in the present.”
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In his book, Sheen described being consumed by what he called the “holy trinity” — mixing cocaine, cigarettes and porn.
“[Why?] First and foremost, because of how good it felt,” he said. “Anyone who’s struggled with addiction … a lot of them will tell you the same thing. I wouldn’t have done it at that level in those combinations if the majority of it didn’t feel awesome.”
After several failed attempts, Sheen said he needed to follow a different approach if he wanted to get clean and stay that way.
“I don’t believe someone is an alcoholic when they’re not drinking,” he said. “I don’t believe someone’s a drug addict when they’re not doing drugs. I don’t believe in the disease model. Once I was able to stop worshipping that model, then I started looking at it a lot differently.”
“And look, sometimes it’s just how much access one has to something,” he continued. “It can take a life of its own. It feels better than any of the other stuff you’re doing. Then that’s going to be the thing you do in the face of job responsibility, family responsibility. Addictive behavior? I’m not denying that. But I don’t believe that, away from all that stuff, I have a secret demon living in my mind that wants to kill me every second of every day.”
Sheen still experiences what he calls “shame shivers” — sudden feelings of guilt over his past. He previously said he spent his 50s apologizing to those he hurt.
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“What I tell myself is I can’t go back to that moment, regardless of the wreckage, and bring a simple item from it into the present,” he said.
“It doesn’t mean it should be completely forgotten. I keep a lot of that stuff close. … The shame shivers, they just come out of nowhere. But they’re spaced out these days a lot more than they used to be. I also think being honest with yourself takes the power out of those memories and those feelings. We’re all flawed.
“The hardest things in life that I’ve either accomplished or overcome, I’ve handled alone primarily. And so, I was going to apply that same tenacity, that same grit. And then I knew if I’d done it myself [get sober] then I had completely earned it. The stuff that we earned is the stuff that we truly own.”
Today, Sheen is looking to the future with “great optimism.” While he has kept a low profile since getting sober, he hasn’t ruled out a return to show business.
“I’ve always said that I want to be consistent, but not predictable,” he explained. “I’m reading materials being submitted to me. It’s the best stuff I’ve read in 20 years. They’re talking about optioning my book. There’s just something in the air right now. I can feel it and taste it. It’s exciting. It’s electric.
“I haven’t been in a moment like this in a couple of decades, and I’m really grateful for that.”
Sheen is also the co-founder of a new non-alcoholic beer line, Wild AF.
“It’s another entrepreneurial effort I’m excited to share with the world,” he said. “For the past eight years, people would see me on the street. They’d say, ‘Congrats on being sober, but shoot man, you’re the one person I’ve always wanted to have a drink with.’ Well, now they can.”
What advice would he give his younger self?
“No crack, no cigarettes, no tattoos and don’t take everything so personally,” he said.
