Charlie Sheen’s new memoir, The Book of Sheen, and an accompanying Netflix documentary offer a catalogue of the actor’s long struggle with substance abuse and chaotic personal behavior, including claims that he had sex with men while using crack cocaine and consumed so much cocaine that a Mexican cartel refused to continue supplying him.
In the book and in interviews tied to its release, Sheen describes incidents spanning more than three decades: an intervention staged by his father, Martin Sheen, and Clint Eastwood in 1990; repeated stints in rehab; run-ins with law enforcement related to his ties to a Hollywood prostitution ring; and a series of relapses that culminated in his widely publicized 2011 breakdown. He tells readers that his male sexual partners were using crack at the time and that some later attempted to blackmail him, and he emphasizes that the partners were consenting adults. Sheen also says he once took two kilograms of cocaine in under three weeks, a volume that prompted his supplier to warn that it looked like he was re-selling the drug and led a Sinaloa cartel contact to refuse further sales.
Sheen, who came to fame in Oliver Stone’s 1986 film Platoon and later on television sitcoms including Spin City and Two and a Half Men, recounts a pattern of early experimentation that escalated into heavy substance use. He writes that he began using cannabis at about 11, lost his virginity at 15, and by his early 20s was attending late-night parties, mixing drugs and alcohol and seeking out sex workers. He says that family members and friends—including Eastwood—confronted him in 1990 and took him to rehab, a stay he left early and from which he soon relapsed.
The memoir is candid about the mechanics and consequences of his addictions. Sheen describes moving from snorting industrial quantities of cocaine to smoking crack in 1992 and later injecting drugs, at one point developing a synthetic morphine habit. He recounts overdosing after attempting to inject cocaine in 1998 and suffering a stroke, an event he says was discovered by his bodyguard. He writes that he absconded from rehab multiple times and that, in one instance, a bodyguard smuggled drugs to him while he was institutionalized. In later passages he frames those years as cycles of recovery and relapse, and he says he ultimately decided to stop in late 2017 after an episode in which he realized his intoxication was preventing him from properly caring for his daughter.
The book revisits several public episodes that shaped Sheen’s reputation. He details frequent use of prostitutes, including paying for services from a network run by Heidi Fleiss in the early 1990s; he says he provided testimony under an immunity agreement when investigators pursued Fleiss. His account also covers relationships and marriages: he married Denise Richards in 2002 and they had two daughters before divorcing amid allegations of substance abuse and other misconduct in 2006; he later married Brooke Mueller in 2008 and had twin sons, divorcing again after more mutual struggles with addiction.
Sheen devotes space to the 2011 period in which his erratic public behavior drew intense media scrutiny. He describes how a testosterone cream he used to regain physical shape contributed to volatile mood swings and erratic interviews in which he coined phrases such as "tiger blood" and "Adonis DNA." That year he was dismissed from Two and a Half Men, an event that preceded a touring stand-up-style series of appearances called the Violent Torpedo of Truth. He writes that the arc of his public unraveling was well earned by his own conduct and that he does not seek to portray himself as a victim.
On the subject of his sexuality, Sheen acknowledges experiences with men but frames them within the context of drug use, saying in the memoir that some encounters were followed by attempts at blackmail. He told the documentary that discussing those experiences publicly felt "liberating." Sheen also reminded readers of his 2015 announcement that he is HIV-positive, saying the disclosure and subsequent treatment were part of his reckoning with past behavior.
Despite the revelations, Sheen writes that he has worked to change his life. He told interviewers that he has been sober since the end of 2017 and celibate for about a decade, statements presented as his personal claims in the memoir. He also reflects on remorse and repair, saying, "Most of my fifties were spent apologising to the people I hurt," and stressing that he wanted to recount his life on his own terms rather than from the vantage of a victim.
The narrative traces Sheen’s arc from a young actor in an entertainment family to a leading man and television star whose personal excesses repeatedly imperiled his career. It links high-profile career moments—wins in Oscar-and Golden Globe–adjacent films, sitcom success—to increasingly risky private behavior, and it chronicles episodes in which he survived serious medical emergencies and legal entanglements.
The Book of Sheen is presented as a first-person account without a ghostwriter, and it mixes name-checked incidents with more oblique references to episodes the author says he either cannot recall precisely or prefers not to detail. Critics and readers will weigh the memoir’s disclosures against long-documented reporting about the actor; the facts Sheen relates about interventions, arrests and public meltdowns have been widely reported, while elements that concern others’ identities or private conduct are described in more guarded language.
Sheen’s memoir arrives amid ongoing public interest in how Hollywood manages addiction and fame. His account underscores persistent questions about enabling, accountability and the role of family and industry in addressing substance misuse by high-profile figures. The book and documentary provide Sheen’s perspective on those topics and close a chapter on episodes that helped define his public image for decades, while leaving to readers and the broader public the task of interpreting the veracity and significance of his recollections.