Charlie Sheen on being diagnosed with HIV: 'I immediately wanted to eat a bullet'

NEW YORK, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Charlie Sheen detailed his battle with HIV Wednesday during an appearance on Good Morning America.

"The day I was diagnosed, I immediately wanted to eat a bullet," the actor said to GMA's Michael Strahan of learning he had the disease.

"But my mom was there, I wouldn't do that in front of her, or let her find me to clean up that mess." "But then, something else came over me. They gave me a handful of pills and said, 'You can go home now, and you're going to live,'" he continued.

"If I was there with, you know, brain cancer or, or, a stomach thing, or some meningitis, we wouldn't be sitting here right now."

Sheen says he now see's HIV as a way to help others. "I feel like I'm carrying the torch for a lot of folks out there that are suffering from the same thing," the 51-year-old explained.

He mentioned a new drug he is helping the Food and Drug Administration study.

"I am so grateful, for eight months now, I've been enrolled in an FDA study ... for a medication for a drug called PRO-140." he added.

The drug, he states, is "very close to being approved."

"It's not this hideous cocktail that, that, that leads to so many side effects and, and just, just so much disdain, you know, emotionally and physically. It's one shot a week, and there's no side effects," Sheen said.

Sheen announced he was HIV positive in November of 2015 four years after he was diagnosed.

The former Two and a Half Men star promoted safe sex in June as the new spokesman for Lelo Hex condoms.