Charlie Sheen details what inspired him to get sober: 'I'm not sure how I created such chaos'

Charlie Sheen got candid about his past struggles in a new interview, detailing the day that he decided to commit to getting sober more than a year ago. 

The former "Two and a Half Men" actor, 53, appeared on the British morning talk show "Loose Women" Thursday to discuss his battles with drug and alcohol abuse, which flooded headlines and ultimately led to his termination from the show in 2011. 

"What a highlight reel," Sheen said of his past incidents. "It feels awful. I can't sit here and lie to you. Some of it is very surreal. To this day, I'm not sure how I created such chaos and wound up in that head space. It's as though there was some alien or demonic possession going on... I wish I could make a lot of it go away, but they wouldn't call it the past if it wasn't."

Sheen noted that his struggle came, in part, because he "went through two divorces and had four children" over the course of his time on "Two and a Half Men," but acknowledged that he should have behaved professionally at work. 

"That's kind of a lot," he said. "The other side of that is that you've got to park that stuff before you come to work. Because you've given them your word that you're there to do a job and to the best of your ability. That, I violated. But, you know, I didn't go to prison. I didn't kill anybody.

"This guy took the brunt of it," Sheen continued, referring to himself after a host pointed out that he "did an awful lot of harm" to himself. 

Sheen said he feels like a completely different person than he used to and revealed he's been sober for over a year now and has been in therapy. He's also keeping things more low-key. He said he's got a strict rule of no more than five guests at one time in the Sheen household to reduce his chances of feeling an urge to drink. 

"There's nothing left in that world," he said of his past drinking habits. "I exhausted it completely. The only thing left would be something catastrophic... Every other time (I was sober) I was led there though an intervention or rehab or a detox. This last time – the last time – I couldn't get my daughter to an appointment she had."

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Sheen recalled being drunk and calling a friend to drive his daughter ("I don't drink and drive ever"). He later realized that his actions was deterring him from being present for his children. 

"The next morning I just woke up and said, 'today's the day.' And that was it," he said. 

Detailing the "tough but not impossible" process of saying sorry to loved ones he wronged, Sheen said he got "tired of apologizing for things you can't remember doing.

"The amends can't just be words, they have to be actions... But you make them when it's appropriate. It's not about making them on your terms, it's about approaching others on theirs." 

Sheen doesn't have any entertainment projects in the works, but says he remains optimistic about moving forward with his life and re-entering the workforce.

"I essentially have nothing to promote today, but I thought about that and actually I do have something to promote: I'm promoting sanity," he said. "I'm promoting a sense of nobility and a return to a more innocent place and just gratitude and knowing that whatever comes next, work-wise, that the version that I will deliver will be spectacular." 

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