Charlie Sheen on His Wild Past, Embracing Sobriety, and Learning to Forgive Himself (Exclusive)

On Sept. 3, Charlie Sheen turns 60—a milestone he wasn’t sure he’d ever see.

“I have more days behind me than in front of me, and that’s fine,” he says in this week’s cover story for People, after a beach photo shoot in Malibu, not far from where he grew up.

“But I’m feeling pretty good! Most guys my age, they usually have a bad back or knees. Somehow I dodged that.” The former high school baseball pitcher, who stays fit on his rowing machine and does his best to eat healthily (“most of the time”), adds, “I just have a bad shoulder that I have to take Advil for.”

If it seems like life has slowed way (way!) down for the actor who spiraled into the depths of addiction in his 40s, faced countless tabloid scandals and endured two very public and ugly divorces, he says eight years of sobriety will do that to you.

These days, instead of benders with cocaine and call girls, he spends time meeting friends for coffee, visiting his parents and, until recently, wrapping up his debut memoir The Book of Sheen (out Sept. 9) and the two-part Netflix documentary aka Charlie Sheen (Sept. 10).

“It’s not about me setting the record straight or righting all the wrongs of my past,” Sheen says of releasing both projects at once — something he says just happened coincidentally.

“Most of my 50s were spent apologizing to the people I hurt. I also didn’t want to write from the place of being a victim. I wasn’t, and I own everything I did. It’s just me, finally telling the stories in the way they actually happened.” He jokes, “The stories I can remember, anyway.” 

Sheen’s memoir starts at the very beginning of his life, and covers his childhood, when he and his three siblings would tag along with dad Martin Sheen on the set of his movies, including spending months in the Philippines while he shot Apocalypse Now.

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After high school, Sheen decided to join his dad and brother into the family business. A small role in 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and bigger ones in Platoon and Wall Street shot him to superstardom in just a few short years. But with success came the age-old trappings of fame: booze, and easy access to cocaine, fast cars and sex.

Looking back, he thinks a lot of his early partying came from fear that the fame and money was all temporary.

“There was always that voice of doubt, that it was only a matter of time before it all went away, so to enjoy it as heartily as you can,” he says.

In the documentary, his Two and a Half Men costar Jon Cryer notes that he sensed Sheen never felt he deserved his success. “That was pretty insightful,” Sheen says, adding that he personally asked everyone featured in the doc (including Cryer, his former boss Chuck Lorre, his two ex-wives, Denise Richards and Brooke Mueller, and even his former drug dealer Tony) to participate.

Unfortunately, as his success continued, so did his love of booze and drugs, and when he tried crack for the first time, he was hooked. Sheen also dabbled in opiates and heroin — if it could numb him, he wanted it.

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He went to rehab several times, and knows it’s a miracle that he only had one overdose and one close brush with death. “At my parties, I always said, ‘Park your judgement at the door. No pain in the bedroom. And no one can die,’” he says. “Those were good rules.”  

Sheen hit a new low when he was fired from his hit sitcom Two and a Half Men in March 2011. He then gave his infamous 20/20 interview where he claimed to have “tiger blood” in his veins. (He explains in the memoir that on top of drugs, he got addicted to using a testosterone cream that made him a “raving lunatic.”)

In 2017, Sheen finally got clean for good, and he says now he had to be ready for sobriety.

“You have to be willing,” he says, noting that only you can save your own life. In his case, it was deciding he wanted to be the kind of dad his kids (Sami, 21, Lola, 20, and twins Max and Bob, 16) could rely on. He hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since. “I keep a [mental list] of the worst, most shameful things I’ve done, and I can look at that in my head if I feel like having a drink,” he says.

As for drugs, he quit them before he got off the booze, and says he’s not interested in going back. “Whether it’s true or not, I like to think the next hit would kill me.”

While he’s made amends with almost everyone from his past, forgiving himself for his actions has been harder.

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“Forgiveness is still an evolving thing,” he says. “I still get what I call the ‘shame shivers.’ These are the moments that hit me, of the heinous memories and choices and consequences. They’re getting farther in between, so I guess that’s progress. What has been interesting about making amends is that most people have been like, ‘Hey yeah, we’re good man, but we hope you’ve also forgiven yourself.’” 

As for what’s next? He’d love to return to acting, but says he’s taking things one day at a time, instead of outwardly chasing anything. “I’m not calling all of this a comeback,” he says of returning to the spotlight. “I’m calling it a reset. I’m just living for the next moment, whatever that turns out to be.” 

The Book of Sheen hits shelves on Sept. 9 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold. aka Charlie Sheen streams on Netflix starting Sept. 10.