Years after his infamous drug-fueled meltdown that saw him hit rock bottom, Charlie Sheen is opening up on his miraculous recovery from addiction, telling DailyMailTV: ‘I got so tired of letting everyone down.’
In an exclusive interview the former Hollywood wild man, who celebrated one year of sobriety in December, says he has ditched his hard partying ways, is tucked up in bed by 9pm most nights and vows never to go near a porn star again.
The superstar actor, who starred in hit movies Wall Street, Platoon and Major League, also hopes to reinvigorate his successful film and TV career and is moving out of his $10million mansion and ‘downsizing.’
‘I feel good, I’ve made some significant changes and I’m on the right track,’ he said.
Explaining the moment he had an epiphany, he recalled: ‘I got so tired of letting everyone down, and ultimately myself down, that I made the decision the very morning of December 10, 2017, to embrace a newly unearthed direction and path.
‘Now I can say I haven’t had drinks since 2017, which is cool.’
Reformed: Charlie Sheen, 53, pictured at his Beverly Hills mansion, has opened up about his road to recovery in an exclusive interview with DailyMailTV
Sheen said he also hated being a ‘burden’ to those around him following alcohol and drug binges.
‘Every night would start out with the best intentions, (it would) always wind up with good and decent people having to clean up my mess,’ he said.
‘And the other side of that is I got tired of apologizing for things I couldn’t remember doing.
‘To be engaged in a fantasy that it’s gonna be different or it’s gonna be more fun…it’s all fiction.’
Sheen, 53, is as famous for his decades-long dance with hard drugs, booze and scores of women as he is for his glittering acting career.
His legendary partying has been well chronicled, and even spoofed in TV and film.
But the star hit the headlines again in December when he announced he was celebrating a year of sobriety.
‘So, THIS happened yesterday,’ he tweeted alongside a photo of his sobriety coin. ‘A fabulous moment, in my renewed journey. #TotallyFocused.’
Reflecting on why he had plunged so deeply into an abyss of substance abuse in the first place, Sheen pinpointed a key moment in his life.
He was diagnosed with HIV in 2012 – a shocking revelation which he revealed to Matt Lauer on the Today Show three years later in 2015.
It was that grim diagnosis, he has since admitted, which sparked his relapse into alcohol and drugs after 11 years of sobriety.
But today Sheen says he’s back, feels ‘amazing’ and his health is ‘better than ever’.
‘I work out every day, I hit the treadmill, eat well, read scripts, watch the news and I’m in bed most nights by 9. I’m feeling better than ever.’
Sheen, who once referred to Alcoholics Anonymous as a ‘cult’, says he’s helped in his recovery by a ‘little bit’ of therapy and he attends a ‘very private’ group to discuss his addiction problems.
But he added: ‘Outside of that it’s me, but it’s also drawing on a lot of the stuff that I learned over the years and finally embracing those tools and knowing them to be very useful.’
Sheen also said he’s changed up the meds he takes for HIV which he says has had a significant impact to his health.
The change in Sheen is palpable.
He speaks calmly and articulately during our interview and gone are the often strange turns of phrase, lengthy monologues and forceful rants.
He hasn’t quite kicked smoking yet – currently on two packs a day – but he’s working on that too.
And those close to him are amazed at his transformation.
‘I only yelled at two people all of last year, both of them were my children,’ Sheen said with a laugh.
‘I don’t break s**t anymore. I don’t lose stuff. I’m extremely punctual.
‘And my kids are really seeing this guy, this like super reliable guy and that’s such a gift that they can just depend on me, even if I become their Uber driver for the day, you know, they’ve got the best version of me possible.’
Sheen has a daughter Cassandra, 34, with high school sweetheart Paula Profit, daughters Sam, 14, and Lola, 13, with ex-wife Denise Richards and twin sons Bob and Max, nine, with ex-wife Brooke Mueller.
At his lowest point, shortly after being fired by CBS and Warner Bros following his derogatory comments about Two and a Half Men creator Chuck Lorre, Sheen had a highly publicized ‘meltdown’.
Clean Sheen: The star tells DailyMailTV the lifestyle change has left him feeling ‘better than ever’ but admits he hasn’t quite kicked smoking yet
Sheen, who is selling his $10M Beverly Hills mansion, says he is excited to ‘downsize’ to a much more ‘contained living space’
He made a string of bizarre statements in TV interviews, claiming he was a ‘warlock’ with ‘tiger blood’ and ‘Adonis DNA’, and that he was ‘winning’.
YouTube videos he posted showed him smoking cigarettes through his nose, and berating his former employers in surreal rants.
He said in one interview: ‘I’m tired of pretending I’m not special. I’m tired of pretending I’m not a total bitchin’ rock star from Mars.’
But Sheen says that that strange behavior is ‘absolutely’ in the past.
The star admits he’s now too ’embarrassed’ to watch the videos back.
‘I can’t even watch a video or anything that documented that whole moment in time,’ he said.
‘I don’t really know what happened. I really don’t. I don’t even think it was about the show (Two and a Half Men). I think it was about just so many years of feeling frustrated about a lot of different stuff and it just kind of all came out at the wrong time. But I can’t change it, I can’t be ruled by it, you know? I can’t beat myself up for it, it happened, all I can do is what I’m doing every day and just keep moving forward.’
Last year Sheen went to Australia on a speaking tour and has attended various charity events in California to keep busy.
‘I’ve been out and about and available and hopefully leaving situations better than I found them,’ he said.
The multi-award winning actor also credits his recovery on fans and well-wishers he meets on the street.
‘It’s pretty cool… I’ll be in the supermarket or at a sporting goods store, you know, getting gas and I can tell the way people approach me and interact with me and how they feel when they walk away – I can see that they sense a different energy, a different focus.
‘And that’s pretty cool that someone walks away and you know that maybe you made their day a little bit brighter just for that moment.’
Sheen admits he is now ’embarrassed’ to watch videos of his infamous ‘meltdown’ in which he publicly claimed he was a ‘warlock’ with ‘tiger blood’ and ‘Adonis DNA’, and that he was ‘winning’
Sheen, who dated pornstar Bree Olson (far left) while living with model Natalie Kenly (far right) says he’s ditched his enablers and called adult film actresses ‘nothing but trouble’
Sheen said his HIV diagnosis sparked his relapse into alcohol and drugs after 11 years of sobriety. He was diagnosed in 2012 but did not publicly reveal he had the disease until 2015
Sheen was once the highest paid TV star earning $1.8M an episode for his long-running role on CBS’s Two and Half Men (pictured) until his wayward behavior got him fired in 2011
He added: ‘You can’t do that when you’re freakin’ sideways and hammered all the time.’
Sheen admits he surrounded himself with ‘enablers’ for years – people who drained him of money and encouraged his wayward behavior.
And after his HIV diagnosis things went from bad to worse as the vultures circled.
The star tortured himself as he tried to deal with the secret burden of carrying the virus and confided in only a handful of his ‘inner circle’ while being bombarded by threats of lawsuits from girls desperate to cash in on his dark secret.
Asked if he has managed to get rid of his ‘enablers’ – specifically the phalanx of porn stars that regularly frequented his home, he replied: ‘Absolutely. I don’t give any of my time to any of those characters anymore. And it’s just so much better sometimes just to be alone, watch a movie, read a script, read a book, watch a sporting event. ‘There’s far less variables involved and much less wreckage.’
Sheen added that the porn stars were ‘nothing but trouble’ and after his legendary blow-outs he said he would often get the blame for things others around him had done.
As part of his transformation the star has sold his $10million seven-bedroom mansion in the ultra exclusive Mulholland Estate enclave above Beverly Hills, and is hoping to ‘downsize’, possibly to an apartment in Malibu.
‘It’s time to downsize,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be held hostage by a bunch of stuff. I’m feeling so much lighter on my feet these days that I’m really excited about having a much more contained living space.
‘I don’t know where I’m going. I’d like to go back to Malibu, get an apartment, a condo. Stay in a motel… it doesn’t really matter.
‘I think it would fit in really nicely with where my head is at.’
