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Charlie Sheen was on The Today Show this morning (video above) to promote his upcoming sitcom, Anger Management, on FX. (It’s not out until June 28 so this is some early promotion and/or damage control.) Charlie and Matt Lauer talked quite a bit about Charlie’s big public meltdown a year ago. I can’t believe it’s already been a year. That was insane to see, and looking back, Charlie agrees. He said he was considering making a documentary of that time, but that he watched the videos and didn’t want to put it all out there again.

In this morning’s interview Charlie came across as somewhat more together than he did during that time period, which is of course extremely relative. He still seems like a megalomaniac whack job, and he’s still manic but not as much as he used to be. He does have more self awareness and seems much more sober-ish. Charlie admitted that he still drinks, which was all too obvious when he was videotaped acting wasted outside a Guns N Roses concert a couple of weeks ago. Matt got all serious about Charlie drinking even though he’s an addict and Charlie blew it off in his weird jokey way. Here’s more, thanks to Radar Online, and the video is above. I’m glad Radar is explaining this because it’s hard for me to follow Charlie’s train of thought:

“I’m going to start off with something that’s going to sound awful at first, but bear with me, okay?” Lauer told Sheen. “There were people who probably last year at this time were the place to bet that you might not even be around — and I mean, literally.”

Sheen joked, “I would support that, sure – I would have taken that action!”

Sheen said some of his antics during last year’s media blitz were “cringeable,” but “looking like a real insane wordsmith was fine.”

Lauer ran down a list of different projects Sheen’s been tied to since his parting from Two and a Half Men, including his new sitcom Anger Management and roles in commercials and the upcoming movie, A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III.

Sheen said after he parted ways with CBS, he “didn’t really have a plan.

“I was just — I guess the plan was to just reintroduce myself to America and to the media and just say, ‘Sorry about that. But here’s what’s happening now.’”

Asked about his oft-discussed partying, Sheen conceded he still has a drink every now and again.

Lauer said, “You’ve admitted issues with drugs: I don’t know one addiction specialist who would tell a guy in your position, ‘It’s okay to drink.”

“Well, if you do, I should probably go to that guy!” Sheen joked. “I have different theories about the whole thing: One of them is, ‘Park near the VIP exit!’”

Sheen, who noted his disdain for recovery groups during his diatribes last year, said “I don’t believe that whole — that whole piece of fiction that they insist that you have an allegiance to it, you know. But that’s just me — that’s just me.”

Asked if his Anger Management producers have made him agree to any stipulations regarding substance abuse, Charlie joked, “There’s no testing unless, you know, something obvious happens, I show up covered in blood, somebody else’s.

“No, but — and there’s clauses in any contract … they’re getting pretty serious about it. Well, there’s so much money at stake these days. I don’t blame them.”

Asked about his pointed comments toward his replacement Ashton Kutcher in media reports, Sheen conceded he harbors a few hard feelings at the way his Two and a Half Men stint wrapped up, including his character’s storyline death.

“A little bit, but I’ve got to just work through that, you know. I could probably just do it in group on my show. Just not out loud,” he said. “I just wish they had taken better care of the child left behind, you know, coddled it a little more.”

[From Radar Online]

Are you still surprised this guy is kicking? I’m not, I never really expected him to OD for some reason, probably because it seems like he’s been a hardcore addict for a decade. He’s still doing his thing, and he still thinks he’s got it under control. I’m more surprised that he still has a career he’s promoting. Maybe he’ll be able to hold it together for long enough for this show to be a success. I bet he will. He’s crazy like a fox.

Here’s Charlie outside the Today show today, 3-39-12. Credit: FameFlynet, Inc.