The Book of Sheen: A Memoir

Call girl is a term used to describe a sex worker who meets clients by appointment, often arranged by phone or an intermediary. In The Book of Sheen, the term appears amid stories about escorts and adult performers, as well as notorious “Hollywood Madam” Heidi Fleiss (See: Background). Sheen’s interactions with and payment of call girls highlight his desire to avoid personal intimacy, instead reframing sex as a transactional relationship that doesn’t require intimacy.

Crack is a smokable form of cocaine that delivers a rapid, intense high and a steep crash, driving compulsive use. Throughout the memoir, crack is a central engine of binges, paranoia, legal trouble, and career derailment, often described alongside pipes, torches, and late-night runs. In the narrative, crack represents a serious step in Sheen’s substance use, presented as a crucial moment in his addiction trajectory.

Freebasing is preparing and smoking cocaine in its “base” form to increase potency and speed of effect. In Sheen’s narrative, it’s referenced as part of the wider lexicon of cocaine use and the high-risk behaviors that orbit his worst spirals. Sheen represents the shift to freebasing as another level of increasingly serious substance use.