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Nov. 1, 2024 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:25
Charlie Sheen’s Path: From HIV Diagnosis to 'Chasing The Cure' | Dr. Oz | S7 | Ep 95 | Full Episode
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Time Text
Well, good morning.
Why don't we go run?
Tell me about a dream that you had once when you were 28. In the dream, I saw myself across the room.
I had a sign around my neck.
It said, AIDS. It's going to be the most difficult thing that I've ever tried to tackle.
How scared are you?
This disease chose the wrong person.
With those words, Charlie Sheen ended months of gossip and speculation, came clean about his health, and promised to turn the challenges of being HIV positive into a quest for good.
In the weeks following his announcement, Charlie confided to me the focus of the next chapter in his life.
An ambitious undertaking he calls chasing the cure.
The cure not just for HIV, but for other devastating and incurable diseases.
I got up very early one recent morning to visit Charlie at his home in Los Angeles to learn more about his new path and to find out how he's really doing since revealing to the world his deepest truth.
The culmination of a life long lived on the edge.
Charlie Sheen, on Hollywood's A-list for nearly 30 years, was once the highest-paid actor on television, at his peak making nearly $2 million an episode on the hit sitcom Two and a Half Men.
But all through his career, Charlie battled alcohol and substance abuse, leading to several stays in rehab.
Yet Charlie's life and career only really started to unravel in 2010, when he allegedly went on a drunken rampage against a porn star at New York's Plaza Hotel, which led to another stint in rehab.
Then, after a series of highly public rants against the executive producer of Two and a Half Men, the network executives fired Sheen.
NBC's Jeff Rossin spoke to Charlie as it all unfolded.
I think my passion is misinterpreted as anger sometimes.
It's like everybody thinks I should be begging for my job back, and I'm just going to forewarn them that everybody else is going to be begging me for their job back.
Sheen also endured a bitter custody battle over his twin boys, and they were eventually removed from his home.
His comeback vehicle, Anger Management, was canceled after two seasons.
So it's 5.40 in the morning.
I'm driving over to Charlie Sheen's house.
He sent me a very provocative note a few days ago.
It's a poem called Chasing the Cure.
And he thinks That's what he wants to dedicate his life to now.
Chasing the cure.
I think on the surface to HIV, but also to a lot of the other demons that he's fought with throughout his life.
And he's made some big changes.
Changes that I'm curious if he can keep up.
So I'm curious what he's going through right now.
What's he thinking?
And what's the routine he's getting into to fix his life up?
Hope he's up.
Well, good morning.
You're up.
I am up.
You're up.
I was worried at 5.45.
Was you sure?
Yes.
Got you some water.
There you go.
No one lets you show off, by the way.
Giving me water.
Yes.
Why don't you put lemon in the water?
I got it in mine.
You did put lemon in mine?
I didn't know if you were a lemon water guy.
All people who live a long time do.
Why 5.45 and why this routine?
It's a return to health for me.
And it's the only time when the phone's not ringing, people aren't looking for me, there's not a lot of distractions and demands.
The only thing I have to deal with at this hour are the dogs.
That's about it, yeah.
and it's uh it's just a great way to start the day this hill's tough So whenever I run, I only look down because you can't tell how steep the hill is then.
It's sort of like life.
It is like life.
Like right now, you know, you're struggling with HIV. We all struggle with stuff every day.
Sure.
If you look up and you see how big that hill is, it's sort of intimidating.
Yeah, but you can't look at the entire mountain.
You have to look at it as one, only one way station at a time, you know, one portion.
It's a lot easier coming down.
It's always a lot easier coming down, isn't it?
So what about your life right now is going downhill?
How's it different now that you've been public about this big burden of HIV? It's an incredible weight that's been lifted.
It's a liberating sense of freedom that's returned.
I only wish I'd done it sooner.
Things happen when they're supposed to.
I quit drinking the next day.
After the piece with Lauer.
It just didn't fit in.
Every morning I've been out here shooting baskets or swimming or doing yoga.
I like to do something different every day.
The sun's coming.
I see the dawning over there.
It's sort of like the challenges we face, right?
It gets really dark sometimes.
How do you see past that?
How do you get around the times that are dark so you can find the light again?
I bring a lot of that light into the darkness, whether it's illuminating what's going on in here or my actual path.
I'm not afraid of the dark.
Sometimes it's easier to hide in the dark.
I have a lot of faith, I got a lot of hope in my own abilities to really do something really positive with this.
You told me about a dream that you had once when you were 28. You say it was almost a premonition of what you're going through now.
It was a trip.
In the dream, I saw myself across the room in a cartoon-style caricature and I was pencil thin.
I was pool cue thin and had a very nice black suit on with a red tie.
But my head was the size of Charlie Brown's with a few wisps of hair out the top.
It was very vivid.
I could see it like it was yesterday.
My face was bloated, my eyes were pinched, I was pasty and white and sweating, and I had a sign around my neck, a little gold chain, and it said one word on it, written in red.
What did it say?
It said AIDS. It said AIDS? It said AIDS. That was at 28. I woke up and I thought, holy crap.
And so I pushed it away for years and I just compartmentalized it.
I made it go away.
But I always knew that that was a message from the universe that this thing was coming.
This thing was coming.
You thought you would get AIDS. Everything at 28. I knew it.
I knew it, yeah.
When they told you four years ago...
It wasn't as shocking.
Are you serious?
I'm not joking.
It was not as shocking because it had already been written.
So I don't panic too much.
I usually know how things are going to play out.
Do you have a lot of ups and downs in your emotional coping with the world?
Yeah.
Yeah, I do.
Well, they're not as severe as they used to be.
You know, the chart used to look like that.
It's more like this.
Have you ever thought that maybe you're manic?
That you have these incredibly creative times when you're just, everything's alive and you're in technicolor?
And other times when everything's gray and dark?
Yeah, I've been described as that.
I've been diagnosed as that.
You mean diagnosed by who?
Just people's certain medical opinions, certain personal opinions that might be bipolar or whatever.
What they call that then?
Don't they call it a genius disease?
It is a genius disease.
Or disorder.
Yeah, I would much more embrace, you know, some peaks and valleys and keeping my mind and my brain and my thoughts in my head than turning into some Seroquel zombie, you know?
Up next, Charlie opens up about the addictions that made so many headlines.
And the one addiction he still can't shake.
Coming up next, Charlie on addiction.
How many times have you stopped drinking in the past?
Let's see.
Today's Tuesday.
So what makes you confident that you can make this last the rest of your life?
It's going to be one hell of a freaking journey.
And tomorrow, our conversation with Charlie continues in our studio.
Do you think you can tie back all the errors that you've made in your life back to the addiction that you suffered?
Charlie Sheen.
I'm amazed that I'm actually alive.
Dr. Oz.
Were you scared that Charlie Sheen was going to die from AIDS? The experimental treatment.
I've been off on meds for about a week now.
And yeah, remember I scared my life?
Sure.
A sight of Charlie never before seen.
I got a demon on board that's trying to kill me.
And the bombshell he never saw coming.
I apologize.
I'm a little off my game because right before I walked out here, I got some results.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Does meat really cause cancer?
Explain what the issue is there.
We break it down in our Food Truth series, All New Oz.
That's coming up on Wednesday.
Today, my at-home one-on-one with Charlie Sheen.
After our early morning run, I probed a little deeper into Charlie's troubled history with drinking, and I learned why and how he says he's now stopped for good.
But Charlie also told me about his ongoing struggle with another addiction, the one that may be the hardest of all for him to beat.
I'm glad we made it home.
You and me both.
You're kind of hard to keep up with.
Can we stretch?
Sure.
Some people call it stretch and I call it resting.
Yeah, right?
So let me ask you something, Charlie.
Is that a stretch?
Yes.
Yeah, I'll take you from the stretch.
This is part of your whole football exercise is what they work.
Listen, as you lean forward, it puts a little bit of weight on your right knee.
Oh, yeah.
You feel that?
Yeah, it's got it, yeah.
Different kind of pain.
Yeah, awesome.
Life's painful sometimes.
Yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
Like right now.
So why is it that people who know you the best root for you?
I think it's about how consistent I am.
I've always been a guy that's owned his own crap, that's called others on theirs, and has always been fair.
I don't judge.
I don't give unsolicited advice.
Someone wants an opinion or advice, I'll give it.
I don't volunteer a lot of stuff.
And people know me to be honest at every turn, good and bad.
So I think I've earned a lot of goodwill over the years.
So why is it when you make a statement...
Alright, fine.
It's my bad hip.
Both my hips are bad.
Let's talk about the alcohol a little bit.
When we were running, you confided that you'd stopped the day after you became public with your HIV. Yeah.
It's hard to stop drinking if you've been...
How much have you drunk in your life?
The Pacific Ocean, Atlantic...
The Indian.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah, a few giant.
Probably the five Great Lakes.
How often would you drink enough that you were a little intoxicated?
It would come in waves, but if I got on a run, it would be a week straight.
But then all this stops.
And what's great about this routine is that it closes all the gaps.
There's no room for it.
I can't get up at 4.30 with a blazing hangover.
And it just doesn't go together.
But the times I feel the best about not drinking is in the morning.
You wake up and you don't just deal with the day.
You embrace it.
It feels like it's just that to start the day.
Was it hard to stop drinking?
This time, no.
No.
It was just turning off a switch.
I took a couple of Valium for a couple of days.
Someone warned me about a seizure or some BS. I took one Depakote.
It's tough to give you in rehab in the 50s.
It was done.
I was just on to a new focus and a new energy and a new path.
I just felt so right.
It was such a relief.
There was nothing about it.
I was like, oh gosh, I'm missing this.
Thinking about that, it was like...
Okay, alright.
How many times have you stopped drinking in the past?
Let's see.
Today's Tuesday.
About 2,000.
No, there's a stretch.
I didn't have a drink for 11 years.
You were sober for 11 years?
Yeah, no cocaine, no booze for 11 years.
Yeah, so I know that I have that in me.
So what makes you confident that you can make this last the rest of your life?
I'm not thinking about it like that.
There's no AA application here.
If that works for people, great.
Gotta love them.
But I just think it's about honoring myself and especially the work that's ahead of me.
It's gonna be the most difficult thing that I've ever tried to tackle.
How about the other addictions?
How did you deal with the gambling?
I viewed it as I'm not in recovery, I'm in retirement.
Because I can't beat these people.
You lose so much money if I say, I'm on the wrong side of the bed here, you know?
A gambling is like drugs, you know?
Calling the boogie is like calling a dealer.
Waiting for a drop is like waiting for a game to start.
That's the only part you really feel, you know?
And if you lose as much as I did, you spend the rest of the weekend trying to figure out where to get the money and how to explain it and how to...
Yeah, it's like, it's so nice to watch a game, and it's over, and you're not personally involved, and you can just enjoy it as a fan.
I mean, I fell in love with baseball as a child, and I didn't have a nickel on it.
And I'm able to return to that as an adult.
How about cigarettes?
That's next.
If I stop saying, that's going to be the hardest one, then it won't be.
So how many cigarettes do you have a day on average?
Well, it varies.
Since I started working out, 30, 25. But it's...
I'll take two puffs, put one out, I'll have three or four left in the pack, throw it away, you know, so it's not...
I don't have an exact count.
A program that my brother Ramon and my dad did years ago called Smoke Enders, and they made you put a piece of paper on the outside of your pack and write down every time you had one, and why.
So I tried that once, and it makes you think about it, you know?
It makes you think about it.
But that's what you're doing a lot, I see.
You force yourself to think about Decisions you've made, how are you going to make them differently?
Sure.
It's going to be one hell of a freaking journey.
Charlie's ongoing addiction to cigarettes concerns me because cigarettes are a trigger for so many people.
And for addicts, there's always the potential smoking can trigger other addictions.
Now, Charlie says he's, quote, retired from gambling and quit drinking.
But if he continues to smoke, I wonder how long will his sobriety last?
And how will he deal with the triggers while he's under the most intense stress of his life, chasing the cure?
When we come back, the real toll HIV is taking on his body.
Coming up next, Charlie on tackling HIV. When you find claims that don't work, how are you going to confront that?
So you don't mind calling people out?
Oh, it's going to get hairy.
It's going to be rough.
And tomorrow, our interview with Charlie continues in the studio.
I went down to Mexico and started some treatments.
I'm not recommending that anybody else do this.
I'm presenting myself as some kind of a guinea pig.
All right, so, we got through the run.
This is like a decathlon.
You love baseball, don't you?
I do.
I just think baseball represents life.
People that don't understand baseball don't understand life.
The thing about sports is that it always allows me anyway to understand the feelings of my body.
Right.
Disease does that too, but in a very different way.
Sure.
And as you try to bounce back, you're dealing with a body that's been suffered, hurt in a lot of ways, which I know you know.
So, do you feel that?
Yeah.
I mean, we'll talk in depth at some point about, you know, what these meds actually are.
It's awesome what they do, but it's also terrible what they do.
You know?
And you can feel it.
You can feel it, you know?
From migraines to poo-poo pants.
You know?
You learn a lot from checking your underwear.
Over 40, black underwear.
That's a rule in life.
Over 40, black underwear.
Let's go some yoga.
Right on.
Arms outside.
Left side.
One side's always worse, isn't it?
It shows the asymmetries in life.
Yes.
Back and forth a little bit.
We've been playing sports all day.
We talk about sports.
I see all the paraphernalia.
All over the house.
Memorabilia.
Memorabilia, Perfidelia.
I see Perfidelia and memorabilia.
I try to keep them separate, you know?
How are you trying to build your team?
Chasing a Cure is not a one-man job.
My team is going to build itself.
We're going to encounter so many different types and some bigger brains than others.
And we're going to have to be smart enough to pick and choose who we're going to follow.
And it's going to be based on results.
We're not going to take people's word for what they think they can do.
We're going to have to see it out in the field, stuff that's actually working.
That's the stuff we're going to pursue.
How are you going to shine light where there's darkness now?
I think I... We'll have access into certain areas where others have not.
And that's the power of celebrity.
That's the power of fame.
And I'm not saying that abusively or arrogantly, just knowledgeably.
People let down their guard.
And they talk about things they probably shouldn't.
And I'm in a place I probably shouldn't be.
But the primary drive, the primary focus is gonna be my condition.
When you find claims that don't work, how are you gonna confront that?
We'll thank them for their time.
We'll have an educated dialogue about why we believe it doesn't work, or why we've proven it doesn't work.
And we'll move on to the next...
So you don't mind calling people out?
Oh, hell no.
No.
I asked you because I could see...
Oh, it's gonna get hairy.
It's gonna get hairy, yeah.
I could see some noise.
It's gonna be rough.
Tomorrow, Charlie joins me here in studio with a provocative development in his search for the cure in HIV. But when we come back, an inside look at Charlie Sheen's bedroom, where he reveals what keeps him up at night.
And it's not HIV. Coming up next, Charlie on changing his routine.
It took four years to get ready to do this.
Yeah.
What did you change in those four years?
From the time you got your diagnosis to the time that you're ready to start chasing the cure.
Yeah.
And tomorrow, more with Charlie in our studio.
You didn't feel you could be honest about your HIV status.
No.
For those four years that you kept it a secret.
Yeah.
How did you feel compelled to do that?
Dr. Oz.
Charlie Sheen.
I'm amazed that I'm actually alive.
The bombshell he never saw coming.
Right before I walked out here, I got some results.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Spending the day with Charlie Sheen, I pushed him to show me his bedroom since so many of his mistakes in life happened there.
And of course, the bedroom is where our demons are often at their loudest and most damaging.
It was here where Charlie revealed the things that keep him up at night.
He claims HIV is not on that list.
Oh my.
This is it, huh, the bedroom?
Yeah, and you notice it's contained.
It's pretty cozy.
It's like a cave.
Exactly.
Do you hydrate in here?
Not too often.
I watch a lot of TV in bed, which you're not supposed to do, right?
Yeah.
How do you sleep?
I sleep pretty good.
I sleep pretty good.
I'll average five or six.
I can go three or four nights on four or five and then get that nice seven or eight, like on the fourth or fifth day.
So when you lie in this bed and stare at that ceiling, what keeps you up?
It's either some event from the day or something that I'm going to have to deal with the following day.
I'm sure those are pretty common stress points.
Is it small things that perseverate or is it big things that keep coming back at you?
Your dreams are so vivid.
Yeah, it's usually small things that I turn into big things.
You know, something will have gone just not perfectly how I wanted during the day, and I'll sit and I'll think, why did that happen?
How could I have made that better?
Isn't it like you weren't lit well in a scene, or someone said something terse to you, or you were mean to someone you didn't mean to, or you didn't think something was happening?
How small or how big?
Either let my anger get away from me in a situation or told a joke that didn't kill or just embarrassed myself or somebody else or wasn't kind, wasn't compassionate.
And those are the moments that I kind of reflect on at night and think, okay, rather than just obsessing about that, if something like that the next day presents itself, just do a better job.
Where's the anger come from?
It's a lot of frustration, a lot of People not really knowing who I am and just assuming it's based on some piece of pulp fiction that they read.
The people that criticize are usually outside the chain link watching the rest of the kids on the playground have a great time, you know?
And they're not.
They know they can't be part of it.
Why does that bother you so much?
Why would it anger you?
It's more disappointing.
It's more disappointing.
I don't think about this a lot, and I don't read anything that they write, and haven't for a long time, because it just makes me upset.
But yeah, that's part of why I'm in this next phase, why I'm pursuing this Chasing the Cure, because this is all they'll talk about.
The things that keep you up at night are the small things, not the big things like the HIV. Right.
That's a little bit paradoxical.
I've always believed that the big stuff will take care of itself.
It's funny, I don't go to bed thinking about HIV. It's the strangest thing.
I think about it in the morning, that's when I do my meds.
And I don't think about it all day long.
But that's gonna change very soon.
It took four years to get ready to do this.
Yeah.
What did you change in those four years?
From the time you got your diagnosis to the time that you're ready to start chasing the cure?
I couldn't get my health together.
I couldn't get my mind right.
I couldn't finally just sit down with myself and make a real internal decision to No matter what, this had to happen.
There was too much chaos in my mind, too much chaos in my life.
And it might be a lot of chaos now, I'm just not paying any attention to it.
Was there a time that you think you actually hit rock bottom so you could have the foundation to build on?
Um...
Yeah, I just, I use different terminology.
I've never used the term rock bottom.
What do you call it?
Just, um...
Deplorable sorrow.
Deplorable sorrow?
Or paralytic sorrow.
Yes.
What's that like?
It's exactly how it sounds.
It's awful.
But a lot of that is rooted in self-loathing and pity potting and all that stuff.
Was there a moment you woke up in this bed and said to yourself, I'm going to change.
This is done.
I'm not going to let what my life has been dictate what I'm going to do today.
It was on that flight back from New York.
After you became the public...
Yeah, it was on that flight.
Talking about HIV. Yeah.
The geography of it was very symbolic.
I was leaving something behind and starting a new part of the journey.
That's what it was about.
Is change upon Charlie Sheen no matter what?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Let me take you next door, because I know your house a little bit.
Okay.
Let me ask you an important question about this room.
In four years, how many times have you missed taking your pills?
I can count them on one hand.
I go one week at a time.
I have a system.
I'm very organized.
What I do...
Let me show you here.
So the day that I've taken...
I use a marker, and it's a cufflink.
It looks like that.
The middle finger!
Pretty much.
So I know, so this way I don't forget, then Tuesday's done.
Then when Wednesday's done, I move the cufflink, and then when this thing runs out, I refill it.
So it's three pills.
So what do these three pills represent to you when you see these?
Well, I've nicknamed them Team Six.
Team Six?
Seal Team Six.
And I always say to myself, when I take them, I just say, alright guys, go to work, go kill some bad guys.
That's how I look at it.
But they're not the cure?
Not even close.
Those pills Charlie takes each morning are the hard-fought product of more than three decades of work by doctors, researchers, and advocates.
But Charlie is right.
There is no cure for HIV. Not yet, anyway.
Tomorrow, when Charlie's in studio, he's telling us why he's putting everything on the line to find alternative therapies for HIV. Treatments he thinks hold the secret to a cure.
But next, the most intimate moments from my morning with Charlie.
How his HIV diagnosis drove him to drink again after years of being clean and sober.
Coming up next, Charlie on coping after his diagnosis.
What are the triggers for you?
What would push you to drink again?
Um...
What pushed you last time?
Um...
And tomorrow, our interview with Charlie continues in this studio.
So what happened that would torture your liver like that?
That's a lot of damage to your liver.
That's wrinkling my face off.
It may come as no surprise that Charlie Sheen has a bar in his home.
What is surprising is what I found there.
Souvenirs from Charlie's two favorite films that he says are the key to his character and his destiny.
That sparked the most intimate moments of our morning together, with Charlie confiding how his HIV diagnosis eventually drove him back to drinking after years of being sober.
What room's this?
It's a room I call Babes.
Babes?
Yes.
You can see.
Sort of a double entendre.
It's named after Babe Ruth because of the Babe Ruth memorabilia.
What's the double entendre part?
Babes and babes.
You know what I'm saying?
Or having babes.
In babes, yes.
And this is your dad's?
My dad's dog tag from Apocalypse, yeah.
And this is the fin from Jaws.
So these are the two greatest films ever made.
There's a lot of metaphors in this room.
Yes, there really are.
There really are.
So if someone has just stopped drinking, having a bar in their bedroom, it's sort of a trigger, isn't it?
It depends on how much booze is still actually kept in that bar.
There's none in there.
You took all the booze out?
There's booze in the garage.
In the event if a guest wants to have a drink, I'm not opposed to that.
Yeah, when I got sober years ago, I didn't run around town trying to close all the bars.
It's not realistic.
Someone comes to your house, they might be a little uncomfortable or a little anxious, and you give them a drink, everybody's having a better time.
What are the triggers for you?
What would push you to drink again?
What pushed you last time?
Wow.
Last time it was just a lot about just kind of, you know, To suffocate the anxiety and the fear of what my life was going to become with this condition.
And getting so numb that I just didn't even think about it.
It was the only way to really, the only tool I had at the time, so I believed, talked myself into believing, that would quell a lot of that angst, a lot of that fear.
And it only made it worse.
You know, you wake up severely on home and the problem is still present.
So you started drinking four years ago when you got the diagnosis?
No, I got really healthy right afterwards, and that lasted about six months.
And then a couple things happened in my personal life, and it just made sense at the time.
But you'd been abstaining.
For quite a while.
Yeah, yeah.
And I've always been good about that.
I've been able to turn it off when I have to.
What's this self-loathing about?
I've always found that paradoxical about you.
I don't know.
I've spent 10 years in therapy and we didn't get to the bottom of it.
I think it's just not giving myself enough credit for the stuff that I should celebrate about what I do and who I am.
But therein lies that frustration.
Forgiving myself, I expect that from others, and that's not realistic.
The days I make everybody my teacher, those are the days where I learn the most about myself.
You have your father's dog tag from Apocalypse Now.
Right.
And you have the back fin of Jaws.
Yes.
The real ones.
Dorsal, yeah.
Dorsal fin.
Yeah.
Why do you store those?
Well, they're my two favorite films.
Ever made.
Apocalypse would be number one, Jaws number two.
They're the two greatest films ever made.
And it's funny, I'll set stuff up and then understand the metaphoric value or impact that it truly has.
But I usually don't do that in the moment, it's only afterwards, in hindsight, that I see, oh my gosh, this message was created for a reason.
And if you think about Jaws, it's It's a monster that you seemingly cannot kill, which is what I've got.
But they finally killed it through teamwork, if you think about it.
It was Brody's marksmanship, it was Quint's rifle, and it was Hooper's air tank.
They killed it through teamwork.
And with Apocalypse, it is one man's journey into the unknown, into himself, into the darkness, to not just Terminate Courageous Command, but to terminate a part of himself.
And so when you put those two together, now that display makes perfect sense for the next phase I'm embarking on.
Kiz teaches a lot.
These are all yours.
Yeah, Bob, Max, Sam and Lola.
Cassandra's in there, right there.
I don't have a photo of Luna, my granddaughter.
It'll get you in trouble now.
She's all over downstairs.
Lola, when your kids' younger ones grow and they're able to Google things, five years from now, when they Google your name, what do you want them to see?
What are they going to see?
They're going to see that Dad's a true hero.
And helped a lot of people, and continues to, that couldn't or can't help themselves.
You're going to see that Dad overcame some stuff that was deemed insurmountable.
You're going to see that Dad rose above and didn't really care about what people thought about him, or his methods, or his beliefs.
And dad was the dad that we've always loved.
He just took it to a whole different level.
And that's something that, as a father, you know, to be really proud of.
Tomorrow in studio, Charlie reveals more about what he wants to accomplish in the next five years, no less than a cure for HIV and AIDS. But next, Charlie's in the kitchen, the drink he now makes every day to stay healthy.
It's a side of Charlie that will probably surprise you.
Coming up next, Charlie on Chasing the Cure.
Most people wouldn't think of you as a healthy person.
You're not the face of health normally.
Well, that's fine, but there had to be some help in there along the way if you think about what I've done and I'm still alive.
And tomorrow, our conversation with Charlie continues in our studio.
So we agreed, we embarked on this journey to chase the cure, that we'd be brutally honest.
I'm going to ask questions that are sometimes tough, but I want you to be able to answer them.
Dr. Oz.
Charlie Sheen.
I'm amazed that I'm actually alive.
The bombshell he never saw coming.
Right before I walked out here, I got some results.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
This is your usual morning?
Yeah, this is the combination I stumbled onto recently.
I was curious to see what you thought of all these ingredients being mashed up together.
Why plastic?
Uh...
It's easier on my teeth.
It's quieter.
I can't stand being in a restaurant and you hear all the silver and the china and the clinking and the clanking.
It's crazy making.
There's a whole condition about that.
That's what you were telling me, yeah.
How about this sound?
That's going to have to stop.
That can't continue.
We're going to try to figure out what's going on here.
All right, so we'll use plastic today to walk through the ingredients.
So you have honey, bee pollen, the greens building blocks.
The pollen, of course, has a lot of healing properties as well.
Right.
We've got some protein here.
Yeah.
A bit of that.
You can see how much stuff is in here.
Yeah, but that's probably about 20 grams of protein already.
That's a lot of protein.
That's good.
Okay.
I'll throw in half a banana.
Have you lost any weight since you were diagnosed?
No, I stay sort of in this 10-pound range.
But one of the side effects of the meds is it makes you bloated.
So you can do a thousand setups a day and never eat a single car when you still get this little thing.
It's what it is.
Got a little pineapple juice here, which has a bromelain, which is good for any joint pain, right?
You know about bromelain?
Well, yeah, I have a few friends that have arthritis.
Yeah?
Yeah.
Big anti-inflammatory.
Yeah.
Gonna go with a little coconut water here.
Have you already studied health?
Have you been curious about it?
Well, my mom was, you know, macrobiotic when I was five.
And so I've always been exposed to it.
Homeopathics and organics and all that stuff.
It's always been a part of...
Whoops, sorry.
It's not going to work.
A part of our...
Our households growing up, you know?
Most people wouldn't think of you as a healthy person.
You're not the face of health normally.
Well, that's fine, but there had to be some health in there along the way if you think about what I've done and I'm still alive.
You know, I wasn't living at frickin' Fat Burner, right?
That's right.
Okay, is this thing to tell you?
Most people are probably saying, it's unfair if Charlie outlives me.
Hey, you know, that's on them.
Good enough?
It looks good to be.
All right.
Let me get a shot of this.
Well, cheers.
Let me know what you think.
Good luck with Chasing the Cure.
Thank you.
We'll be watching.
I know you will.
It's good.
It's not too bad, right?
It's not too bad.
So give me three words that describe the old Charlie, and then the three words that describe you today.
Hammered, fractured, crazy, focused, sober, hopeful.
That was the most moving moment of our day together, and I came away rooting for Charlie's new lease on life.
Tomorrow, Charlie joins me in studio to reveal the first steps in his journey chasing the cure.
Stay with us for our preview.
Dr. Oz.
Charlie Sheen.
I'm amazed that I'm actually alive.
The bombshell he never saw coming.
Right before I walked out here, I got some results.
All new Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
One of the most fascinating things I learned in my day with Charlie Sheen was how often he sees his own life through the lens of his father's movie, Apocalypse Now.
He sent me multiple texts over the past month with powerful quotes from that film.
And I was particularly struck by this one.
You ever feel like you're watching a snail crawl along the edge of a straight razor?
It's my dream.
It's my nightmare.
Crawling, slithering along the edge of a straight razor and surviving.
Like his father in Apocalypse Now, Charlie's fine with being a flawed foot soldier, chasing the cure for what he perceives as his biggest enemy, AIDS. But the more time I spent with Charlie, the more I began to wonder if he's chasing the right cure.
There were other issues arising, getting louder and louder, which demand at least as much attention.
Tomorrow, here in studio, we dig into the other demons plaguing Charlie Sheen.
Take a look.
How are you doing now?
Do you feel okay?
I'm not...
I apologize.
I'm a little off my game because right before I walked out here, I got some results that I wasn't...
I was disappointed about.
I'm not on my meds.
No, I've been off my meds for about a week now.
And I always feel great.
And yeah, I'm a risk of my life, sure.
Why are you putting your life on the line?
Are you still off them?
Were you scared that Charlie Sheen is going to die from AIDS? Do you think the drugs and the sex addiction contributed to your becoming HIV positive?
Uh...
How much money do you think you lost because of your gambling addiction?
It was a lot.
It was a lot.
It was in the millions.
Much like cocaine, you know.
I had an episode, uh...
Sorry.
Shoot.
Uh...
I had an episode June 9th.
I was walking up the stairs and I said, okay, I can either go to sleep or I can hit the pipe and go to the ER. So we took a little trip to the Jersey City Medical Center to share a surgeon's eye view.
The thing about the liver, though, is this is our body's weight control system.
I look at your laboratory tests when the function of your liver has been elevated, demonstrating that you're actually going from this towards this.
Right.
But we don't believe my liver's ever looked like this, do we?
This is Chris's future.
Your father, and he was filming Apocalypse Now.
He'd suffered a heart attack.
Yeah.
So at age 10, how did that affect you at such a young age?
When I'd last seen him, he was vibrant and young and in shape and handsome and looked like a movie star, you know?
And when I saw him again, he was on a cane.
Did it influence how you think about death?
I got a demon on board that's trying to kill me, you know?
I'm amazed that I'm actually alive.
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