Charlie Sheen–a trainwreck in progress.
Charlie plays Charlie: the Misadventures of Charlie Sheen
“How can you live with yourself, you horrible evil man?”
“He drinks.”
In a 2008 episode of “Two and a Half Men” (“A Jock Strap in Hell”), one of Charlie’s many jilted ex-lovers, Delores Pasternak (played by Alicia Witt) asked Charlie Harper/Charlie Sheen how he could live with himself after he dumped her years earlier. Charlie’s teenage nephew, Jake, tells us all we need to know: “he drinks,” by which he obviously means “he drinks alcoholically.” Alcoholism causes euphoric recall, which makes Charlie/Charlie view everything he does through self-favoring lenses—meaning he doesn’t (and can’t) remember anything he did as horrible and evil. Yet, as your classic Don Juan type alcoholic, he is horrible in his own self-satisfying way, even if the writers make us laugh at almost every line in one of TV’s great portrayals of alcoholism.
Unfortunately, the actor, Charlie Sheen, is hardly acting while earning $1.8 million per episode. Charlie Sheen, son of the long-time recovering alcoholic actor Martin Sheen, has–and has had for years–a messy personal life. In 1990, Sheen accidentally shot his then-fiancee, Kelly Preston. He was named as a regular customer of Heidi Fleiss, who ran brothels in the early 1990s. He has been involved with at least two porn stars. Sheen overdosed on cocaine in 1998 and, in a classic case of disenabling, his father reported him to authorities for violating parole. Charlie married actress Denise Richards in 2002 who, while pregnant with their second daughter in 2005, filed for divorce, accusing him of threatening her with violence.
In 2008 Sheen married former actress (now real estate agent) Brooke Mueller, with whom he had twins in 2009. Later that year–specifically, Eggnog (Christmas) Day–Sheen was arrested on charges of domestic violence against Mueller. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to 30 days in rehab, 30 days of probation and 36 hours of anger management classes. He was not required, as one would think the judge might do if he or she wanted to increase the odds of Sheen’s behaviors improving on a more permanent basis, to wear an ankle monitoring device designed to continuously test for alcohol in his system.
The latest of Sheen’s escapades–and bear in mind that in the life history of an addict only a tiny fraction of the fun stuff ever makes it into the public eye–is having been found drunk and naked in The Plaza Hotel by the New York Police Department, after having (allegedly) “trashed” his room. According to reports, he accused the woman in his room—said to be a prostitute—of having stolen his wallet. When the woman denied it he reportedly flew into a rage, and she called security as she locked herself in the bathroom. According to police, he was so “intoxicated, irrational…incoherent…[and] emotionally disturbed” he was given the option of hospitalization or jail and wisely chose the first.
According to Charlie’s chief enabler, publicist Stan Rosenfield, the actor was hospitalized after suffering an “allergic reaction” to medication. I think it’s safe to go out on a limb and suggest the odds that Sheen’s long-standing alcoholism isn’t at the root of the behaviors are somewhere between nil and none.
Sheen’s life, like that of his alter-ego Charlie Harper, is best explained by unchecked alcoholism, which left untreated will end in tragedy. Judge Marsha Revel, before removing herself from the Lindsay Lohan case, did the right thing by offering Lohan tough love, the only kind of love appropriate when dealing with an addict. I suspect a Judge Revel could save Charlie Sheen.
However, so strong was my sense that his father’s legal intervention would keep him clean, I wrote about it as an intervention that “worked” in Alcoholism Myths and Realities: Removing the Stigma of Society’s Most Destructive Disease. I was wrong; Charlie needs more. I’ve long advocated video-taping addicts when committing vile acts and showing the results during an intervention. There may be tapes of Charlie’s antics at the Plaza Hotel. I’m afraid his enabling handlers may not even let him see the tapes. However, if they did—and even better, if released to the public—they could create a bottom that will never be forgotten and even serve as a lesson for Charlie-wannabe’s.
——————————————————————————–