Learning Anger Management Lessons from Charlie Sheen – How Not to Do It

For a good example of an emotional and career meltdown fueled by a combination of stress and anger, there’s no better current example than the professional ‘suicide’ committed by actor Charlie Sheen. Sheen’s February 24 rant on radio against Chuck Lorre, creator of the popular TV show “Two and a Half Men”, and nominally his boss, was the bridge too far, causing his atto
ey to receive an 11-page termination letter for the mercurial star.

A High Performing Family is Perhaps a Source of Stress

Born Carlos Irwin Estevez on September 3, 1965, the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen, whose real name is Ramon Gerardo Antonio Estevez, he anglicized his first name and adopted his father’s stage name. Sheen’s father, son of an Irish mother and a Spanish father, took the stage name Sheen in order to get acting parts, often denied ethnic performers. Sheen comes from a family of actors, beginning with his father, and his siblings, Emilio, Ramon and Renee, who all perform under their real name, Estevez.

Signs of Instability Have Been Evident for a Long Time

Charlie Sheen’s personal life has been long marked with signs of an inability to control personal emotions. In 1990, for instance, he accidentally shot his fiancée, Kelly Preston in the arm. He has also been linked with a number of pornographic film actresses. He reportedly suffers from a serious drug addiction, and while on probation for a drug offense in 1998, had to be admitted to a hospital for a cocaine overdose. Sheen also has a record of physical and verbal abuse of spouses, and has been sentenced by the court to undergo anger management classes.

Sheen’s antics and outbursts of the recent past are indicative of an individual under intense stress, who has internalized his anger and who is unable to channel that anger into productive channels. This anger, when combined with his addiction to drugs, sex, and alcohol; or perhaps even the thing that drives him to those addictions, occasionally erupts in self-destructive behavior as he strikes out at those around him. The pressure of being part of a famous family, with a father and three siblings all having successful performing careers, for a person as competitive as Sheen appears to be, undoubtedly creates an unbelievable level of stress. A person lacking the maturity to recognize this and find ways to cope, or seek help, will, as Sheen has done, travel quickly down a road to failure.

Failure Could Have Been Avoided

The negative outcome of Sheen’s inability to contain or control his anger and addiction was not inevitable. His fall from the pedestal of fame could have been avoided, had he in the first instance recognized and truthfully acknowledged his problems. His actions and words of the past several years indicate that he failed to do this. For years, with a hit TV show on their hands, Sheen’s bosses at CBS and Warner Bros. Television ignored his off-screen antics and misbehavior. When, however, he committed the unpardonable sin of taking a bite at the hand that was feeding him, he was axed. In striking out at “Two and a Half Men” creator Lorre, Sheen went outside the chain of command, failed to communicate adequately, and went public without considering all the potential implications of his actions.