Charlie Sheen Reveals Impressive Sobriety Milestone
Sheen says he focuses on his family to stay motivated in his sobriety.
Charlie Sheen recently discussed hitting a huge sobriety milestone. "Next month I'll be six years sober," Sheen said in a December 7 interview with PEOPLE. "I have a very consistent lifestyle now. It's all about single dad stuff, and raising my 14-year-old twin boys Max and Bob."
Along with the two boys he shares with ex-wife Brooke Mueller, the 58-year-old is also the father of two daughters, 19-year-old Sami and 18-year-old Lola, with his ex-wife Denise Richards. It was actually an encounter with one of his daughters that inspired the actor to start a new chapter in his life.
"One morning I'd forgotten my daughter had an appointment I'd promised to drive her to, and I'd already had a couple of pops that day," he explained. "So had to call my friend Tony to take us. We got her there on time, but it broke my heart because she was in the backseat and I could just tell she was thinking, 'Why isn't Dad driving?' So I got home and sat with that for the rest of the day. And the next morning I just stopped."
Keeping small goals in mind enabled him to achieve the change overnight. "I think the first month I was like, I'm going to give it a month, just see if I feel any better, and if my interactions with those that are closest to me improve," Charlie recalled. "And they did. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to go another month. And then it got traction. I had momentum."
He added, "There was just instant evidence that this was the side I needed to be on. I couldn't be in denial about it anymore." A routine involving his four children keeps him on track now, so he focuses on that to stay motivated.
"Now I wake up early, around 4:30 or 5 a.m., get an early jump on the news, work out, answer emails," the Two and a Half Men alum said, joking, "Then I get the kids up and help them with their morning routine, if you can call it a routine."
While focusing on his children, Sheen is again stepping back into the spotlight while rebuilding relationships. In this case, he intends to work again with Chuck Lorre, former Two and a Half Men co-creator. As a matter of fact, he recently guest-starred in Lorre's new television series Bookie 12 years after their public fallout occurred following Charlie's explosive outburst against Chuck that led to his being fired from the CBS sitcom.
The first episode starred Sebastian Maniscalco as the titular bookie Danny, who went to Malibu to track down Charlie Sheen. When Danny found him, Sheen was hosting a poker game at a rehab facility. As part of the poker game, Angus T. Jones, his former co-star from Two and a Half Men, appears; the scene is an homage to the show's pilot episode.
In an interview with TVLine, Lorre revealed that he and Sheen had the same thoughts regarding the poker game and wanted to recreate the scene from the pilot episode. "And then the next moment was me calling Angus and saying, 'Hey, Angus! You want a job?' Lorre explained. "And the other guys in that scene were in the [Men] pilot. A couple of the guys – Eddie Gorodetsky and Dan Foster – were writers on Two and a Half Men."
"It was actually almost 20 years to the day that we shot the pilot of Two and a Half Men," Lorre continued. "Only now, instead of being in pajamas and annoying the guys, Angus was in the game, and he was terrific. It was a wonderful thing to reunite with both those guys. It really was."