(NewsNation) — Charlie Sheen’s new memoir has shed new light on his life, including the personal and career meltdown that made global headlines.
Sheen reveals all in his new memoir “The Book of Sheen,” released Tuesday. He writes about his reliance on drugs and alcohol, being with sex workers, his marriages and divorces, as well as his mental health struggles.
Here are some of the biggest revelations in the former “Two and a Half Men” star’s new book.
Charlie Sheen details crack use
Sheen writes that he started using substances at an early age. He tried marijuana at 11 years old and cocaine in high school, according to USA Today.
“The main issue with the drug, for me, was how cunning it was,” Sheen writes in the book. “I’d be going about my day handling a bunch of not cocaine things, and in the next second be launched into a hair-on-fire obsession to get that drug into my bloodstream.”
The “Platoon” star said he first tried crack in 1992 and was immediately hooked, USA Today reported.
“People will claim their greatest feelings in life as ‘my child’s first steps’ or ‘saving that kid from a fire,’” he writes in “Book of Sheen.” “To quote Matt Hooper from ‘Jaws:’ ‘I got that beat.’”
He writes in the book that he experienced “a thirty-two-hour cocaine nosebleed” on the set of “Money Talks” and he had overdosed at home while injecting cocaine.
He also mentions efforts made by his famous friends to help him get sober, including Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, who told him, “I have never seen someone who needs to be in rehab more than you do.”
Charlie Sheen’s addictions led to ‘Two and a Half Men’ firing
The actor was fired from “Two and a Half Men” in 2011 when he stopped showing up on set after he filed divorce from his third wife Brooke Mueller, according to USA Today.
He said his split from Mueller “left me numb, both in spirit and from the amount of booze and dope I showered my brain with to quell the debilitating frustrations. It was the flashpoint that left me unable to show up and execute my job with any focused consistency, and as a result ‘Two and a Half’ came to a screeching halt with eight episodes still on the production schedule.”
At the time of his erratic behavior, he also called the show’s creator Chuck Lorre a “contaminated little maggot.”
Charlie Sheen used “Hollywood Madam’ Heidi Fleiss’ services
Sheen doesn’t hide the fact that he’s slept with sex workers, admitting that he used Heidi Fleiss’ services to meet the women, even spending $2,000 to be with two women “from midnight ‘til whenever” in 1992 shortly after meetng Fleiss, according to USA Today.
He describes meeting with the sex workers “like a hundred Christmas mornings all at once in my favorite age from childhood. It was the mystery of the unknown, wrapped in the giddy mischief of secrets that had to be kept in the shadows.”
Charlie Sheen’s HIV diagnosis
The “Mad City” actor was diagnosed with HIV in 2011, which he calls “shocking and depressing.”
He said that before his diagnosis, he was experiencing “nonstop clusters” of headaches and night sweats.
“As shocking and depressing as my new status was,” he writes in the book, he felt “relief. The relief of knowing an entire discipline of high-tech medicine was at my disposal to drive that bastard into submission.”
Charlie Sheen’s ‘betrayal’ from dad Martin Sheen
Sheen comes from a famous acting family. His father is Martin Sheen, and his brother is Emilio Estevez.
He told Michael Strahan of “Good Morning America” on Monday that his family staged an intervention for him while he was in the throes of addiction at 24.
Sheen said when his father turned him into the police for violating his probation in the late ’90s, it felt like the “biggest betrayal,” but he now knows that Martin Sheen made that decision as an act of love.
Charlie Sheen reflects on sobriety, ‘failing his children’ and the past
Ther 60-year-old Sheen is now sober, having quit drinking in 2017, and drugs years before, according to People magazine. He told the outlet he has no interest in revisiting drugs and alcohol, “Whether it’s true or not, I like to think the next hit would kill me.”
In his book, he writes that a 2017 car ride with his daughter Sami, who he shares with Denise Richards, inspired him to quit alcohol after he wasn’t able to drive her to an appointment because he was impaired.
“There was only one thing that felt worse than betraying myself, and that was failing my children,” he writes, according to USA Today. “In that car, on that day, with my best friend and a child I adore, I joined Sam in those mirrors and saw a guy who was desperate to finally come home for real.”
Sheen has reportedly made amends with people from his past, but finds forgiving himself hard.
“Forgiveness is still an evolving thing. 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,” he told People.