It’s no secret Charlie Sheen has lived a life of wild moments. Now, in his new book, The Book of Sheen, the actor holds nothing back. He shares eye-opening stories about his past drug use, from cocaine to crack and beyond. The book, which hit shelves on Tuesday, September 9, truly dives deep into his experiences. (For the record, Sheen has been sober since 2017.)
Sheen, who is 60 years old, recounts one jaw-dropping period where his usual drug supplier actually cut him off. Why? Because the dealer, who operated "south of the border," thought Sheen was selling drugs himself. The amounts he was buying were just too high. "I’m not sure what started it, but I went on the most epic run of all," Sheen wrote. "I burned through almost two kilos in less than three weeks." After his non-stop party, the call came.
"My guys are cutting you off because they’re convinced you’re dealing," Sheen recalled his dealer saying. "They’ve never seen so many drugs go to one guy who wasn’t dealing, and they’re giving you a pass — because you’re my guy." Sheen faced a choice: "find a new dealer or cut my smoke dreams in half." He knew deep down it wasn’t good. "It’s a tough feeling to describe; on one hand, it was a badge of honor that landed me in the crack Hall of Fame," he shared. "On the other, I had lost his trust, and that was no good at all."
Early Encounters and First Arrest
Sheen’s journey with drugs began at a young age. He was just 11 when he took his "first few pulls" from a joint. He remembered them going down "pretty smooth and tasting amazing." For Sheen, "a whole new world began to take shape." Things got weird fast. "I was so high I felt like I was in a movie where hats were illegal because they were full of chocolate potato salad," Sheen wrote. "Nothing made sense, and I started to panic." His friend’s dad drove him home. His babysitter sent him straight to bed without dinner, but then "hunger hit me like a city bus."
Later, in high school, drugs led to his first arrest. Sheen had fallen asleep in his car. "I lied about the car breaking down and that I was too tired to push it to the side," he explained. The officer wasn’t buying it and asked for his documents. "I opened the glove box to get them," he wrote. "Seeing the travel bong, he asked sternly, ‘You like to smoke a little weed, don’t you?’ In all honesty, I responded, ‘Yes.’" That honest answer led to "handcuffs, [Miranda Rights], and a quick ride to Malibu City Hall." Sheen spent two hours in a holding cell, thinking about his mistakes. "Mistakes number one and two: the dose of weed to sleep and where we parked to do it."
Cocaine, Crack, and Morphine
Sheen opened up about his "main issue" with cocaine, calling it "how sneaky it was." He noted, "I could be busy in my day doing a bunch of non-cocaine-related stuff, and the next second the obsession would hit me to get that drug into my bloodstream." He wasn’t big on snorting it. Instead, he would put it on the end of his cigarettes, a method known as "coco-puff." He described it as "a decent buzz that lasted about a minute until the next smoke had to be refilled and lit."
After his first trip to rehab, Sheen "took cocaine off the menu." He tried to keep his drinking quiet. "I would ask the waitress to hide my wine in a cup and spent many dinners looking like a guy with a real coffee problem," he wrote. He tried to control it, drinking "just enough to have a good time" and stopping "when the next movie started." With no cocaine, Sheen said he "balanced it" by "doubling down on the alcohol intake."
Sheen’s first taste of crack came in 1992. He was with a woman he was dating named Sandy. After he "rescued her from a group of junkies in a house," they ended up at his apartment, getting high in his bed. "Upon taking that first giant hit, Sandy disappeared under the covers and I disappeared from planet Earth," he wrote. He felt that "nothing would ever be the same" for him after that experience. Crack use quickly "got dark" for Sheen. At one point, he had a 32-hour "cocaine nosebleed" while filming a movie. "I didn’t see the nosebleed mess as a sign that it was time to quit," he wrote. "I saw it as proof that this drug needed a much better delivery system."
On a film set in Arizona, Sheen met a nurse who introduced him to "a synthetic morphine habit" called Nubain. "I’d never messed with heroin or needles. I was terrified of it for the same reason most sane people are: death," he explained. He said Nubain "was an intravenous drug very similar to morphine" that "could be as much fun as a few stiff drinks, but without the horrid hangover." The drug felt "unlike anything I’d ever felt before," Sheen shared. He called Nubain "the juice of freedom," believing it could "help me quit the pipe and cut down on the booze."
Overdose and Rehab Challenges
Sheen was actually trying to detox right before his 1998 overdose. He injected two doses of cocaine into his arm. "They both hit me at the same time," he wrote. "The room began to spin. My ears filled with an echo that turned into a strange hum. My heart rate doubled and wanted to beat even faster." He remembered his breathing was "shallow and wouldn’t go past the base of my neck." Sheen could "barely walk" as he tried to go downstairs and finally called his bodyguard. "My vision began to shimmer in black cubes."
During another rehab stay after his overdose, Sheen reached out to his bodyguard, Zip. He asked Zip to smuggle crack into the clinic. "It was just past midnight, and the window right before the shift change gave us an extra six or seven minutes before the night crew picked up their binders and started rounds," Sheen wrote. Zip had "packed the contents of the one drawer in the apartment that he knew held everything we needed to get high." This included "a large bag of rock and two lighters — but only one pipe."
The Infamous Interview
Sheen revealed that his famous 2011 interview on 20/20 was influenced by what he called "Krazy Kreem" in his book. "It was ‘legal.’ I was using it to get my body back, unaware that, at the same time, I was being transformed," he explained. "This drug is known to metabolize into the same psychological profile an anabolic steroid produces." Sheen acknowledged, "I’ve heard great things about that drug when used responsibly, but let’s be real: drugs and responsibility are two words I never used to put in the same sentence."
