‘It broke my heart’: Charlie Sheen reveals how his daughter inspired him to get sober
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
After years of substance abuse struggles threatened to derail his career and public reputation, Charlie Sheen is on the brink of achieving six years sober. He credits his children with inspiring the change.
Following a series of public rants and irresponsible workplace behavior, Sheen was fired from his starring role on the hit sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” per The Guardian. But the actor’s wake-up call came years later, when he failed to provide parental duties for his daughter.
“I loved drinking in the morning,” Sheen revealed to People magazine. “Loved some scotch in the coffee.”
“One morning I’d forgotten my daughter had an appointment I’d promised to drive her to, and I’d already had a couple of pops that day,” Sheen added.
“So had to call my friend Tony to take us. We got her there on time, but it broke my heart because she was in the backseat and I could just tell she was thinking, ‘Why isn’t dad driving?’ So I got home and sat with that for the rest of the day. And the next morning I just stopped.”
Sheen, who had previously given up drugs, stopped drinking cold turkey the next day. He immediately noticed positive changes in his relationships, health and lifestyle, providing “instant evidence” that he was doing the right thing. “ I couldn’t be in denial about it anymore,” Sheen said, per People.
“I think the first month I was like, I’m going to have give it a month, just see if I feel any better, and if my interactions with those that are closest to me improve,” he told People. “And they did. And I’m like, all right, I’m going to go another month. And then it got traction. I had momentum.”
Nearly six years have passed since Sheen gave up drinking. “Next month I’ll be six years sober,” he told People. His lifestyle looks a lot different now, Sheen says.
“I have a very consistent lifestyle now. It’s all about single dad stuff, and raising my 14-year-old twin boys Max and Bob,” the “Anger Management” actor explained. “Now I wake up early, around 4:30 or 5 a.m., get an early jump on the news, work out, answer emails.”
After losing his role on “Two and a Half Men,” Sheen took an acting hiatus. He is making a return to the screen as a star in “Bookie,” a new Max sitcom written by Sheen’s former colleague Chuck Lorre — who wrote “Two and a Half Men.”
Lorre said that Sheen was the perfect actor to star in “Bookie” and he felt ready to patch things up after the pair’s falling out.
“We were friends once,” Lorre told Variety. When they reunited for the first time, “that friendship just suddenly seemed to be there again.”
“I don’t want to be too mawkish about it, but it was healing. And he was also totally game to make fun of himself. When he came to the table read of that episode, I walked up, and we hugged. It was just great,” Lorre revealed to Variety.
Sheen reflected on the era during which he “has the best work reputation” — something he lost during his years of substance abuse.
“I was the first to arrive, last to leave, when in doubt, I would over prepare. I would just check every box. And then that went away. So I was really excited about being that guy again,” Sheen told People.
“I’m proud of the choices that I’ve made and the changes I’ve made to live a life today that will never look like that mess,” he says of his former ways. “That was some alien version of myself.”
Related
