I think Charlie Sheen will likely die this year, and I'm worried it's my fault.

You can't go anywhere right now without hearing some mention of Charlie Sheen's current meltdown.  He's in the newspaper, on the radio, on television, and on the Internet.  God is it on the Internet.  It's probably the subject of one out of six friend's Facebook statuses, and it's probably one out of three tweets in my feed. The man is a train wreck.  He looks startlingly bad on TV.  Sheen has serious demons, and despite his protestations to the contrary, he's clearly not winning.

This isn't new.  I heard my first "Charlie Sheen got drunk and had a party with porn stars" story when I was still in high school, so we're looking at a 20-something year old tale.  However, now he's starting to have that "death spiral" feel and look to him.  As I watch and read all of these stories, I can't help thinking, "Isn't there someone who can step in for him here?"  I made somewhat of a joke about Sheen needing an involuntary committal earlier today, but the more I think about it, the more I think, "What's a guy got to do to get some help?" 

I mean, would you be surprised at all, at...all..., if you watched the news tomorrow and heard that he went crazy, killed both of his ex-wives and kids, got into a shootout with police and then shot himself?   You might be horrified, but would you be surprised?  Would there be anyone who could really say, "I didn't see that one coming?"   No chance, right?  So, shouldn't someone be doing something here? 

There's a story in today's New York Times highlighting that what finally got Sheen in trouble wasn't his horrible treatment of women, it was attacking his boss.  Basically what the writer is saying is Sheen could physically and verbally abuse all the women he wanted because his show makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year.  Then Sheen got in trouble for attacking his boss, and they made the move to shut the show down, even though it makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year.  What's missing from the story is that the show makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year because I, and many, many others, have watched the show over the years.  Without us, there's no hundreds of millions to be considered here, so are we the audience Sheen's enablers?  I knew all of Charlie's stories from the beginning.  The reason I stopped watching had nothing to do with any of that.  I stopped because I thought they ran out of jokes about two years ago.  Would he have been allowed to get to this state if we weren't watching the show? 

Now the show is gone, but we the audience are still egging Sheen on.  "Listen to what Charlie said on the radio!  Watch Charlie rant like a lunatic tomorrow morning on Good Morning America and then come back for the rest of it tomorrow night on 20/20!  What crazy crap will this drug addict say next!"  Part of me thinks it's like slowing down while driving by a car accident.  But part of me thinks it's more like pouring gasoline all over a curve in the road, knowing that a drunk driver is racing down the street, and then laughing hysterically and mocking him once he crashes the car. 

Now, for all I know, this is how Sheen's life would have ended up one way or the other, even if he had ended up a D-lister like his brother Emilio Estevez (no offense, Emilio).  Maybe the story would end the same no matter what, but it nags at me.  I'm not taking all of the blame, mind you.  I'll take maybe one millionth of it, along with the rest of the audience for this spectacle.  That's not a lot, but it's more than zero, and that bothers me.  Again, what's a guy got to do to get some help around here, and what does it say about us when we just point and laugh?