Charlie Sheen 'emotionally crippled' by addiction, dad Martin Sheen says

Charlie Sheen may not believe in getting sober, even though it worked for dad Martin Sheen -- who just described his sitcom-star son as "emotionally crippled" because of addiction.

Still, the 70-year-old actor can relate to what his 45-year-old offspring is going through, he said in an interview published Monday.

"I've had psychotic episodes in public. One of them was on camera –- the opening scene of 'Apocalypse Now,'" Sheen told the Telegraph as he and son Emilio Estevez promoted "The Way," Estevez's latest directorial effort, in which they both star. "So I know what Charlie is going through. And when you do something like that, that is out of control, that's the most difficult thing. You have to have courage."

Remember, Charlie Sheen is the guy who this year closed his eyes and cured his mind in a nanosecond. That after being cured at least once before after rehab. The rehab after his 1998 overdose, that is, not to be confused with the "preventative" rehab he entered after his Christmas 2009 arrest on domestic violence charges. The nanosecond cure was part of his home program at the "Sober Valley Ranch," in the wake of a days-long porn-stars-and-blow bender -- no, not the Vegas bender, or the Plaza Hotel incident -- that put him in the hospital and on hiatus on his way to being fired.

The former "Two and a Half Men" star has repeatedly slammed the Alcoholics Anonymous "cult" and the disease model of addiction, choosing to say in recent interviews that he's not used drugs since a certain date, rather than describing himself as having been "sober" for any length of time.

The elder Sheen -- who hasn't had a drink in 20 years and in 2008 said "successful rehabilitation needs accountability" -- sees it differently. He described Charlie as "not a kid," except in one area: "When you're addicted, you don't grow emotionally."

"So when you get clean and sober you're starting at the moment you started using drugs or alcohol. You're emotionally crippled."

Hmm. Would it be rude to play Pin the Age on Charlie Sheen's Arrested Development?

Ponder that while listening to songified video below -- it's certain to please the teen boys, celebrity bloggers and other emotionally challeged folks in the audience.

RELATED:

Charlie Sheen: Are we witnessing the crash in 'Sheen's Korner'?

Top 10 requirements to be Charlie Sheen's #TigerBloodIntern intern

Charlie Sheen expands 'Torpedo of Truth' tour again; is your city next?

-- Christie D'Zurilla

 

Photo: Charlie Sheen, left, Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez got together in September 1994 when Charlie got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The "Platoon" star had just turned 29 chronologically -- but what about emotionally? Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[Lisa]

Hey, Christie, caught you on "Charlie Sheen: Bad Boy on the Edge". Too bad you were on for all of 5 seconds, and Chuckles was on for most of the hour!

[cdz from the ministry]

@Lisa -- Wow, that was fast! I just taped that maybe a week and a half ago? Who knew...

;)

//cdz

[Steve Wimer]

Martin Sheen has a good grasp of the situation.

[L.A. Voter]

You know what -- let's consider for a minute the highly likely possibility that what Martin Sheen calls being an "emotional cripple" and what I and many others call "being an immature pathological narcissist" PRECEDED becoming an addict.

Let's just face the face that addiction doesn't just happen, and it's NOT a disease. I had chicken pox once and I didn't go to the store and buy the germs. Moreover, if someone had told me I was sitting next to someone who had the germs, I would have run, not asked for some. No one held Charlie Sheen down and made him take crack. He was a grown "man" and knew perfectly well what he was doing. But he thought he was too special to become a drug addict. That's not a symptom of addiction, it's the CAUSE.

And frankly, although in the past I had some respect for Martin Sheen, another cause of the arrogance and refusal to accept consequences that cause someone to pursue using substances to which any human knows they can become addicted is the endless rationalization and excusing of unforgivable behavior by those who surround them. Is Charlie Sheen's "emotional cripplehood" also responsible for his violence against women and his vicious, anti-social behavior and lashing-out against anyone he perceives as opposing him? Or is that perhaps a symptom of a father, a family, a series of employers, and an industry that ignored overt acts of violence, and continual criminal and anti-social behaviors that, if his name weren't Charlie Sheen, would have rightfully landed this creep in jail decades ago?

Martin, your son's problem is not that he's an addict, our problem is that he should be in jail. You abdicated your responsibility to raise him so that he knew no matter who his father was, he was responsible for his own acts and choices. You raised a monster, you never took a stand when, over DECADES, it became grotesquely clear that something was very wrong with him. And now you want to blame a thing, a substance, for the acts of a human being against other human beings? How does that jibe with your much-discussed and ballyhooed religious faith? As a Catholic, I know there is supposed to be personal accountability. Yet you think your own son is exempt from accountability?

The real problem with addiction is that addicts, and former addicts, are astoundingly, glibly adept at deflecting blame for their choices and actions and blaming imaginary "diseases" and substances that, while poisonous, are not able to crawl over to an unsuspecting victim and jump down their throats, into their veins, or load themselves into a crack pipe. You became an addict because YOU DECIDED TO TAKE THE DRUG. Your son is a monster because the first time he behaved in an unacceptable way you accepted it. You thought your son was subject to a lower standard of behavior than anyone else's son. And now that your little monster is in his mid-forties, you want to blame anyone but him and yourself and your wife, who made him. Sorry, Martin, but the moral rules (if not the laws) are the same for you and your narcissistic, sociopathic son as they are for the little people.

That being said, it's also somewhat hard to feel sorry for the women who insist on putting themselves in the path of the monster. Charlie Sheen is an amoral piece of garbage, a fact that has been clear for decades. For a grown woman to not only ally herself with him, but create children with him, is utterly reprehensible. The only victims are the kids, who would probably be better off without either of these terminally deluded "parents."

[brion]

It does stand to reason that an "emotionally crippled" human being does not start being that way when they start drinking or taking drugs.
The drugs and alcohol are the step the person takes because they've already realized they're depressed/miserable and they want to get away from it.
The younger Sheen displays more the traits of someone who doesn't "bond." Those who do not bond appear to "love" you, but in actuality, trust absolutely no one and will disappear during a crisis you are having, saying "Oh, I'm not strong enough to help you: you need someone who will be strong for you." Sad to say, they can be dangerous to the emotional health of those around them, those who believe this person will stand by them.
The disconnection starts around age 3 (it was once believed it started around age 5 or 6) and frankly, almost never ends. It is usually the function of the child shutting down emotionally due to some dysfunction with the mother (mothers usually guide children through the stages of emotional growth and love, and if they are crippled themselves, well....the child usually misses these stages and does not know how to love others ). The child will actually shut off ALL emotional vulnerability to the point that they actually are unaware of what they are feeling. The visible clue to this is that they will surround themselves with "losers" or else people who are highly volatile -- or dramtic -- so that they can experience some sense of emotional thru others (vicarious experience).
This is what Hilary Clinton was explaining about Bill Clinton (someone else who does not bond, and withdraws from friendships without a single word uttered to the person (Lani Gunier being the most famous example). Hilary posited that Bill's mother and grandmother had a tug of war for his emotions and he, not wanting to hurt either, shut down. Well....it's a little more manipulative than that.
Not put Mr. Sheen or Mr. Clinton in this category, but Hitler, too, suffered from an inability to bond to other human beings. He took it to the extreme - a complete disregard for human life and we are all familiar with the results -- that neither Mr. Clinton or Mr. Sheen displays, but the point is that if one shuts off all emotion and misses the stages of growth, one is CAPABLE of becoming quite dangerous to others. And the person themselves does not even KNOW that they are missing these emotions. They DO know, however, that they can manipulate others and they are aware that they trust no one. To trust others, especially if others left them, would cause a feeling of abandonment that, for someone like this, is a form of death. They actually feel as though they have died. That is why they shield themselves, emotionally. Not an easy thing to surmount, and a LOT of therapy is in order in these cases.
Young Mr. Sheen displays the emotional age of about 8, the "nyah, nyah, I'm not going to play with you any more and you're a creep anyway." He could be a little bit older, but not much. It's sad. When I watch 2 1/2 men, I see that syndrome so easily and clearly. He's not playing a character: this is who he is. That's why he was perfect for the part. He's "playing" himself.

[Kristen]

L.A. Voter whow you have a really bitter hatred full of anger against Charlie, his family who you don't know at all and the people in general who suffer from some addiction..calm down, addiction is the symptom of a pain far more deep..in a way people use the addiction to let them forget for a while pain who is too much to endure. Often addicts are depressive; drug, sex ect.. is not the illness of course it is the symptom but for sure they suffer from some illness : the depression, and there are many different degrees of depression.
I will not go farther because i don't know Charlie Sheen, i don't know what is the cause of his inner demons and surely his depression and it is not my business like it is not yours.
Maybe people should learn to stop judging others again and again, to let other people live their lives.
Brion your psychiatric analysis is interesting but you don't know Charlie Sheen, you are not his shrink so these type of pseudo diagnostics like some famewhore Dr Drew and co do all over the medias are useless, pointless and silly.

[L.A. Voter]

Kristen -- I judge addicts because I've know a bunch of them for forty years. I am related to several, yet somehow managed not to become an addict myself, hence genetics are not destiny.

You are correct that I have a great deal of hostility towards the culture of addiction that has sprung up, largely within my own lifetime. The beauty of calling yourself an "addict" is that now you can claim to have no responsibility for your own actions. You don't shop too much, or drink too much, or take drugs too much, or have sex with strangers too much because you refuse to control yourself -- somehow a bottle or a needle has assumed superhuman powers and physically drags you towards the drink or the drug.

The "addiction as disease" construct started with a laudable theory: remove the stigma and people who drink too much will feel more comfortable seeking treatment. Seems reasonable, until you meet the multitudes of addicts who choose not to seek treatment. The Charlie Sheens, if you will, who allow their daddies to promote how "crippled" they are, but has good old Charlie seen the errors of his ways and gotten sober? No, he has not. He continues to rampage down his path of destruction while his daddy tells us why it's not his fault. But it is his fault. Crack was known to be severely and immediately addictive right at its birth. I know this because I'm close to Sheen's age. Yet he took it. Are you under the impression he was a "victim" addict before he ever tried it? He deliberately took something he KNEW was destructive and addictive. That is the definition of HIS FAULT.

I am beyond tired of people who have no judgment and self-control implying that they use drugs, or drink (or SHOP, for God's sake...) because their pain is worse than mine. No, it is not. Their pain, their depression, their psychological issues are no worse than those of people who don't become addicts. But their desire to make their deliberate acts blameless is out of all proportion (or logic). Everyone thinks anything they don't want to stop is an addiction. But unfortunately for the addiction cultists, addiction is not some abstruse, mystical condition afflicting only a holy few. Every single one of us knows half a dozen addicts. Some get clean, some don't. But I have noticed that very many of them expect to be the center of attention while an addict, and the center of attention AGAIN, deserving of no end of praise, when they simply stop drinking till they fall down, or taking illegal drugs, or randomly sleeping with strangers ten times a day. Guess what? The NOT doing those things is called being a decent human being who doesn't expect everyone they know to mop up after them and to prop up their existences.

If I could I'd spend my whole day napping, eating and watching TCM. But I can't because that's not what life is. Yes, some people would, given their druthers, drink or get high 24/7. But that's not what life is. And no one, NO ONE, forced them to take that first drink. Charlie Sheen walked, eyes open, down the path clearly marked "addiction." So does every human born in the civilized world in the 20th or 21st centuries. Addiction is not news, nor is it hard to see coming for anyone who realizes that they are a human being, made of flesh, and subject to the same laws of science as everyone else.

But Kristen, you need to realize that non-addicts have just as much pain and depression as people who choose to become addicts. We just don't drink to hide it from ourselves. We also don't expect a medal or a hymn because we DIDN'T take drugs.

Matter of fact, our pain and depression might be worse, because we suck it up and go on, while the "addicts" get all the care and attention, and get and expect so much credit simply for stopping, while we never started at all. And many of us have the additional pain of being abused by addicts, especially those who raise us. But gosh, they don't make a medal for surviving an addict. All they offer is Al-Anon, which is a bizarre program that makes non-addicts recite and mimic the credos of addicts. We don't have their problem, but they try to foist on us their "cure," because no one can be bothered to think about what victims of addicts need. If it's good enough for the godly addict, it had better be good enough for his or her supporting cast.

I met a woman once who immediately launched into her 12-step dance for me (unasked), detailing her adventures in AA. Because I was younger then and didn't yet realize that the addict, or ex-addict, is really only ever interested in his or her own story, I ventured the short sentence that I had once attended an Al-Anon meeting. "Oh!" she said, "Al-Anon! Yeah, we laugh at those people."

Yeah, there's no doubt you do. All we were were the handmaidens. We were the ones who were hit, or verbally abused, or driven by you drunk to school or church. We were the ones whose lives were about your decisions. We were the ones who were never cared for, whose futures went unplanned, whose educations were neglected. We were the ones who never fit in because unlike other kids we never figured in the family. We were the nuisances whose need for school clothes cut into the liquor and drug money. I can see how that would be pretty funny to you once you sobered up.

But really, tell us how your pain is so much worse than ours.

[Opinionated Mama]

Hey L.A. Voter, Al-Anon didn't work for you? Ok, but it works for others who are far less angry after being abused by the alcoholic, and can draw a healthy boundary with the addicts in their lives in a peaceful manner. You are an intelligent person with some valid points, but you are so ANGRY. Your vitriol is pouring from the pen. We get it. We should all pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and go on. What are the other nonexistant conditions of our day? Is depression real? How about schizophrenia, is that real? The medical evidence that says that addicts' brains are different, is that real, or are you the authority on all things, especially your pain and how it relates to others'? AA is not about shirking responsibility, it's about accepting it, every step of the way. I assure you that Martin Sheen and his wife have looked in detail at their own part in this mess. Why is it wrong to pursue a more spiritual way of life? Honestly, I wish you peace. Or maybe you could write a book? Either way, I think whether you're a recovering addict or not, we all deserve happiness, peace and a life without public humiliation, whether we bring it on ourselves or not.

[heartflower]

the article is plain mean.

of all the things dad sheen says, to phrase it the way the article had headlined, is just the type of insensitive and heartless journalism i abhor.

whatever the antics of charlie sheen, it is clear the last thing he needs is to have it seem that his father is critical of him, rather than supportive, which he has amply stated, that he is.

martin has repeatedly expressed support for charlie and is appreciative of the enormity of the problem, the damage to psyche that charlie seems to be suffering.

all of charlie's actions are a call for love, rather than 'help'. any emotionally uncrippled reporter can see that.

[Dancing Scorpion]

Judge not lest ye be judged...well, since I am every day, please allow me to say that Charlie Sheen comes from a good tinseltown family. Very good people. All Charlie's doing is making a career and living the usual way these days in the entertainment business. I'm quite sure any medical or personal problems are being well attended. The public's so gullible...