Charlie Sheen decided to get sober when he realised he was "too irresponsible" to care for his daughter properly.
The 53-year-old actor was fired from his job on ‘Two and a Half Men’ – which was earning him $1.8 million per episode at its peak – in 2011 which prompted a spiral into alcohol and drug abuse.
Charlie is now "1.4 years" clean and admits his moment of epiphany came when he was unable to take one of his younger daughters to one of her commitments because he was under the influence.
In an interview on UK TV show ‘Loose Women’ on Thursday (11.04.19), he said: "I’ve had times in the past, every other time I was led there through intervention. The last time, I couldn’t get my daughter to an appointment she had. I never drink and drive. I called my buddy Tony, we got her to the thing. That night I was like, ‘I’m not even responsible enough for my children’s needs.’ I woke up and was like ‘today’s the day’."
The ‘Platoon’ star admits he struggles to even recognise that person from his wild period and says that during his lowest moments it felt like there was "some alien or demonic possession going on" controlling his actions.
He said: "It feels awful. I can’t sit here and lie to you. Some of it is very surreal to this day I don’t know how I created so much chaos and ended up in that head space it’s as though there was some alien or demonic possession going on."
When asked whether it felt like himself, he said: "Not at all – not how I’m existing and feeling today I wish I could make a lot of it go away but they wouldn’t call it the past of it wasn’t."
One of the most acclaimed actors of his generation, Charlie is now looking to make a comeback on the screen whilst dealing with life as a person who is HIV positive.
Charlie – who father is cinema legend Martin Sheen – discovered he had the autoimmune disease in 2011, however, he waited until 2015 to publicly announce it.
The ‘Anger Management’ star admits when he told his family he had the illness it was his oldest daughter Cassandra, 34, who took the news the hardest.
He said: "I let them all know before I went on television with it and everybody’s been very supportive. My oldest daughter Cassandra, she’s the one who took it the hardest but I reassured her that with medicinal technology and progress that’s been made that dad’s gonna be fine."
Charlie has Cassandra with his ex-girlfriend Paula Profit, nine-year-old twins Max and Bob with his third ex-wife Brooke Mueller and daughters Sam, 14, and Lola, 13, with his second spouse Denise Richards.
Charlie and Denise, 48, have maintained a good relationship since their split and the former Bond girl even invited him to her wedding last year to Aaron Phypers but he declined as it was being filmed and he didn’t want to draw attention from the happy couple.
He said: "We do our best to park all of our nonsense and be responsible."
Charlie Sheen got sober to be a better parent
