Martin Sheen says his addict son Charlie needs 'help and sympathy'

The Hollywood star Martin Sheen has spoken of his fears for his son, Charlie, who is battling addiction, in a frank interview with Kirsty Young.

Talking to Young, the host of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, Sheen admitted that his family finds dealing with his 45-year-old son's problem "a rollercoaster", but said that the troubled star required help and sympathy: "Charlie is dealing with the most profound problems and addiction, it is no secret," said Sheen, 70. "His behaviour has been an example of that."

After discussing his own battle with alcohol as a young man, Sheen, best known for his long stint in the Oval Office on the television series The West Wing, compared his son's addiction with other potentially terminal illnesses. "So, if he had cancer, how would we deal with him? Well, he has another disease and it is equally as dangerous as cancer. And so we lift him up and we pray for him and be present to him. And we try to meet with him as much as we can. But he is an adult and he needs a lot of help on a lot of different levels."

Although his son's problems have made recent headlines following outlandish statements about his home life with two lovers and his sacking from the sitcom Two and a Half Men, Sheen said:"He has been out there on his own for a very long time and as a family you never get used to it. It is a rollercoaster ride and it's been going on for some time. So we deal with it every day."

The star also told Young about the impact of the heart attack that struck him in March 1977 "out of the blue" while filming Apocalypse Now, and prompted a big change in his own habits and attitudes.

Sheen stopped drinking and became a pacifist, he says, as a result of the experience and after reading Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, selected as his desert island book. His subsequent journey back to the Catholic faith, he said, was guided by the memory of his mother who had died suddenly when he was 11. "I have always felt her presence. Sometimes I even see her in other people. It is fleeting, mind you."

The actor's political activism, which has seen him arrested 67 times, has caused him problems in Hollywood, he admits, but he has no regrets. "I cannot not do it and be myself," he said.

Sheen also pays warm tributes to his wife of nearly 50 years, Janet, and his other famous son, Emilio Estevez, who directs him in a new film, The Way. "When he was born I thought, 'Here is the guy I have been waiting for all my life.' He is a companion, a big brother almost. And that is the way it has always been."

With his 50th wedding anniversary due to be marked in December this year, the actor declines to explain the secret of a good marriage, but tells Young that his wife is "the most remarkable human being I have ever known", adding that "honestly, I still don't have a clue who she is".

Sheen chooses two songs by his friend and neighbour Bob Dylan: Knocking on Heaven's Door and Subterranean Homesick Blues.