While feeding our kids and getting them off to school, my wife, Elena, and I turned on Good Morning America for coverage of Colin Firth—and all we got was endless “exclusive” hype around the recently fired and self-proclaimed sober Charlie Sheen, looking red-faced and half-dead while spewing insanity about being an old-fashioned guy who believes in honor and chivalry.
“This just isn’t right,” my wife, an admitted reality-TV fan, said, turning off the set. “They’re taking advantage of his addiction.”
I went about my business today, but the words stuck with me. When I went to check out the headlines on the Web, I couldn’t find much of anything about Mark Wahlberg—a recovering addict who helped Christian Bale win an Oscar for his performance in The Fighter as a real-life addict gone straight. What I found was more Charlie Sheen, who apparently did an impromptu interview with TMZ in his backyard this afternoon.
Same with Libya coverage: buried in the papers and online, but there’s Sheen, front and center. Title X legislation and Planned Parenthood’s funding? Sheen. Wisconsin? Sheen.
Up until now, I had really been trying to ignore the whole Sheen debacle as stupid, sad, and irrelevant to my daily life. Why is Charlie Sheen news? Because he blew a $2-million-per-episode deal with CBS for crack and hookers? Because he’s willing to speak as outrageously as Tiger might have if he’d been fed a truth serum?
Or is it because Sheen is the poster boy for a certain type of American manhood? In his overactive id, do we see our own? Do we watch his downward spiral and think, “Hell, I could be that guy—but just for a day”?
Is Charlie Sheen the addict, or are we addicted to Charlie Sheen?
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Don’t get me wrong: I’m a sick bastard, an addict myself, and not beyond being obsessed with the Sheen mystique. For many years my favorite scene in all of cinema featured an underwear-clad Martin Sheen, Charlie’s dad, in Apocalypse Now, cutting himself and crying like a baby in a Saigon hotel. Even better than that was an interview with Martin Sheen in Heart of Darkness, which is about the making of the film. In it, Martin admits to being so drunk that he couldn’t stand up, and that he eventually took so many drugs during shooting that he had a heart attack and had to be medivacked out. The filming of his scenes was put off until he could get better.
To me that was the ultimate in cool. Kind of like the bar stool at NYC’s White Horse Tavern, a favorite spot of John Belushi’s and, even more famously, where poet Dylan Thomas drank himself to death. I drank there, too, just to be part of addict history. Sheen (Martin), Thomas, and Belushi were the kind of men I aspired to become.
But here’s the thing: I didn’t. I helped myself. I got sober (if you really want to know the gory details of all that, you can read it here). I refused to become yet another addict train wreck. My kids, my parents, and my life were too precious. As was my manhood.
So coming at this Charlie Sheen thing from the other side, it upsets me greatly that we as a culture have adopted this guy as our national obsession. It’s a sad story, but one not unlike any number of drunks and cokeheads before him. I have worked with many men who are trying to get and stay sober. The stuff Charlie has done is nothing out of the ordinary. He’s a garden-variety addict with a big-ass wallet, to make matters a lot worse.
All addicts lie. They will sell their mother for a hit. They will do enormously stupid things to cover their lies. And in regard to sex, personal property, and willingness to engage in criminal behavior, whatever morality they might have when sober goes out the window when intoxicated.
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What upsets me so much about waking up to watch Charlie rant and rave? The man is in desperate need of help, and we as a country are getting off on watching him flounder. I have a sneaking suspicion that it has to do with how Charlie fits into the long line of male celebrities and politicians gone bad (Tiger, Spitzer, Edwards … do I need to go on?).
Yes, we love to follow the ins and outs of insane female celebrities as they ruin their lives, too. But it goes from the cover of the tabloids to the (supposedly) serious news networks when a guy screws up. We eat it up.
My question is, why? Do we all want to believe that guys are that bad? Is our view of masculinity so skewed that we would prefer to talk about Charlie Sheen than Colin Firth, Mark Wahlberg, or Christian Bale? Are the good guys “boring” while the bad boys dial up the ratings, feeding the beast of popular culture?
I learned a long time ago that with addiction, the first step is to realize that the urge to do something is not the same as doing it. And so I kindly ask of men and women alike: change the channel. Read a book. Find out about guys volunteering. (Or if nothing else works, read this site.) Not all men are Charlie Sheen, as much as we seem to think they are.
—Photo timesnewsnetwork/Flickr
I do consider all of the ideas you have offered on your post. They’re very convincing and can certainly work. Nonetheless, the posts are too brief for starters. Could you please prolong them a bit from next time? Thanks for the post.
What’s this “we” stuff?
I never “looked up” this schmuck in any way, shape or form. I have always thought he was lame and a loser. I am enjoying watching his downfall. He deserves this.
The wives and husbands and fathers and mothers and sons and daughters of addicts and alcoholics are not addicted to Charlie Sheen. They will change the channel or turn off the radio. They don’t click on the link to that story—the story whose ending they already know, too well. The story of unchecked disease. Of permanent organ damage and liver failure and the attendant brain damage caused by ingesting, injecting, drinking and snorting too many toxic substances for too long. Fame and money delay the bottoming out for so many people. That’s not a blessing. That’s a curse. Charlie Sheen… Read more »
While he may be addicted, he’s not crazy. Though I’d say he’s definitely a victim of his appetites. But above all, I believe Sheen is just a very, very creative guy who is easily labeled a loon because of his wayward appetites. Have you ever tried acting? I have. It’s hard. It takes a different kind of person to give themselves to a character who lives in words on a page and make it come to life. In front of people – or a camera. I’m convinced that actors are some of the most ‘creative’ people on the planet. Next… Read more »
http://jezebel.com/#!5774374/charlie-sheens-history-of-violence-toward-women
Of course we are addicted to Charlie Sheen – just as we are addicted to looking at fatal car accidents. But in no time, this wreck will be cleared away and we will wait for the next disaster. After all…we’re Americans!
I know you usually don’t answer comments here, so maybe you’ll track me down and drop some science but…. being a recovering addict/drinker like yourself, I would think you’d be a lot harder on Charlie Sheen for mocking AA, and rejecting the people PAID to help him. I just ended a relationship with a family member who decided drugs and alcohol were more important than being a daughter, mother, sister, and cousin. I have no sympathy for people who don;t want to help themselves. For me, Charlie Sheen is mindless funny entertainment. Not because of his tv show, I don;t… Read more »
Dude! his kids WILL be adversely affected! You think this F-ed up shyt doesn’t have an effect on kids? It is deeply disturbing. Not to mention the absence of a father in his right mind.
What makes Charlie Sheen the train wreck that I cannot look away from?
His outrageous treatment of women — including threatening his wife at knife-point and possessing porn of underage girls. No matter what he does, it doesn’t make a dent in his TV stardom. HIs salary seems to increase with his rap sheet. Baffling.
Looking at this mathematically, Charlie Sheen is the .5 in “Two & A Half Men” …and by .5 I’m referring to his blood-alcohol level of course.
Just got done reading that there’s some backlash against the media for the attention their giving Charlie
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110301/ts_yblog_thecutline/9216
While all of this is going on, all I can think of is when will the consequences really catch up with him, and I hope it doesn’t come in the form of something involving his children.
I don’t watch Two and Half Men. Never have, but of course I know of him. He’s famous. But, do we really know famous people just by their fame? No. This is great. Not the fact that he’s a addict going down in flames, but we get to see these interviews as he goes down in flames. How many people’s stories do we never hear? He’s not ready to face facts and he doesn’t want help. It’s sad, it’s a warning, it’s of prurient interest, but it’s not boring. People like to know famous people are fallible. It makes them… Read more »
And now we find out he’s bipolar. No surprise, really, but it’s such a shame that he has to become a freak show for people. If the result is that more bipolar people are helped, then there may be a silver lining, but otherwise…
I really feel for Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. They seem such decent people and it must be so tough watching Charlie fame out in public.
I worry that the US media’s obsession with Charlie Sheen is distracting them from covering Lindsay Lohan.
Nope. Sorry. First of all, don’t blame the media. The media gives people what they want. If the people didn’t want Charlie Sheen, the media wouldn’t be covering it. But the people do want it. So everyone trying to blame the media can take a long, hard look in the mirror. Because it’s your fault. Second, this guy is a living, breathing trainwreck of a human being. Add to that he’s rich and uber famous. Finally, he’s more than willing to televise his downward spiral and let us all share in it. And I for one cannot look away. Every… Read more »
You are right about the audience’s culpability. But the media is a bunch of people with thinking brains and the ability to choose good or evil. I blame them more than the audience, but I ask both to reflect and choose decency.
I agree that watching Charlie Sheen is like watching training wreck in slow motion. He does have some really choice quotes recently, though.
http://www.charliesheenquoteoftheday.com/
People enjoy watching a good train wreck. It makes them feel better about their own lives, watching someone else’s misery. And they don’t have to feel guilty because of Charlie’s privileged background.
He is an addict, and anyone who wishes to be him is nuts. He is chasing coke, is unable to stop chasing coke. There is nothing glamorous or enviable about it. It is a horrible way to live, no matter how many ways he might say he is normal. This has nothing to do with manhood, this is all about Hollywood feeding us a “titillating” tale, which some people find entertaining. He is an entertainer, after all, and he is doing his job in the media universe, and all the sycophants are helping him do it. His big problem is… Read more »
You sound like Carrie Bradshaw in this opening
Tom, I think you are dead on correct. Charlie Sheen has all the makings of an on-screen mega meltdown: he comes from an illustrious media family (Martin Sheen), made some kick ass movies (Platoon, Wall Street) and for many of us who grew up in the 80’s, he was a glamorous guy, the kind of man who showed up in GQ. Now he’s sick–clearly so–and his meltdown is made intensely public by all the media focused on him. It seems like Americans are fascinated not only by a rags-to-riches story, but better still, a riches-to-the-gutter descent. His ravings on the… Read more »
Forgive me, but I feel it’s a bit sensationalist, and a tad awful to use Sheen’s clear addiction and the tragedy of his condition and of his family and those who love him in this way and to phrase the question as though his addiction were in question. I was repulsed by that wording begging to be considered clever. He is clearly, sadly, awfully addicted and spiraling down. Let us have the decency to unplug from that. Your main point (I think) about our (or the media’s or both’s) addiction to broadcasting his tragedy is very well taken. I watched… Read more »
Who’s this ‘we’ that finds Charlie Sheen so compelling, Matlack? I clicked on this link more to see what sort of half-hidden, half-avowed sanctimony you’d indulge in. You didn’t disappoint.
Charlie Sheen is often very charming and funny. He is an entertainer and compared to most more entertaining. Being a train wreck is not enough. He is often compelling compared to most other boring addicts and his raw energy is interesting. His condition is not surprising or worth watching but his ability to improvise is.
We watch Charlie Sheen because he is Charlie Sheen not because he is an addict. So many boring and protective celebrities out there compare to Charlie.
Great piece. American media does a great job of glomming on to the unfortunate shortcomings of men (and women), obsessing most on those who resemble slow train wrecks. Robert Downey Jr. comes to mind as well. We have also been treated to more brief houndings of Mel Gibson and Joaquin Pheonix, hoping to see either of them nose dive into the deep end of public humiliation and failure. In the process we get collectively stupid about the fact that these are people with problems and tend to watch their lives circling the drain as though we are expecting, no HOPING,… Read more »
“In twenty years of counseling addicts and alcoholics I never ran across a study, or even a client, that lent credence to the idea that their out of control lives were rooted in having white skin or too much money or privilege. Just the opposite, I found that addictions cross racial and economic lines like they don’t exist, and that linking the etiology of these maladies to such things is the province of the ignorant, or hateful, or both.” What I meant is that he gets away with all of this because of his position. It’s sickening. Two justice systems…… Read more »
I would rather say he is let to get away with it by the big money studios behind him. They do this here in LA in order to keep filming which earns them huge sums of money. They do not care about his welfare; an employer who did would have let him go a long time ago. They enable him so they can keep filming him, damn what he does off the set.
What did Michael Jackson try to say?
Charlie Sheen questions Obama about 9/11
despite AIPAC controlled media censorship.
Mel Gibson does not play dumb about 9/11 either.
Excellent article Tom. As someone who recently had checks stolen and forged by the son of my best friend to buy drugs I’ve become void of sympathy. He rummaged through my things and took seven checks, forging my signature and over-drawing my account. I did not press charges since he was already under arrest for possession and my charge would send him to prison. His father has repaid me but it was truthfully scary and shocking. He is enabled on every front which is disturbing to witness. I however do not know what I would do if it was my… Read more »