Actor Charlie Sheen gestures towards the media as he leaves the Pitkin County Courthouse after a sentencing hearing in Aspen, Colorado in this August 2, 2010 file photo. -Reuters File Photo

LOS ANGELES: “Two and a Half Men” star Charlie Sheen said in an interview on Monday that he is ready to return to work on the sitcom, after he took a break to deal with his drug problems.

“We are on forced hiatus,” the actor with a history of drug and alcohol abuse told the Dan Patrick Television Show on DirecTV.

“They said, 'You get ready and we'll get ready.' And I got ready and went back and nobody's there. I don't know what to tell you ... I'm here and I'm ready. They're not. Bring it, you know?” the actor said in the DirecTV interview.

Sheen, the highest paid actor on US television and the star of its top-rated comedy “Two and a Half Men,” forced production to be suspended last month when he began a drug rehab program, after being hospitalized following a wild party at his home.

A spokesman for Sheen said on Feb. 3 that the actor expected to return to work at the end of this month.

In his interview on Monday, Sheen seemed less certain about his return date to CBS Corp's <CBS.N> “Two and a Half Men,”

which was suspended with eight episodes still to be shot. “I believe August of 2014 at this pace,” Sheen joked about his expected return to the set. “I don't know, it's supposed to be the 28th or the 29th. That's what it is! It's the 29th of the non-leap year.”

A spokesman for Time Warner Inc's Warner Bros division, the studio that produces “Two and a Half Men” for the CBS network, declined to comment on Sheen's radio interview, or when production will resume.

Warner Bros and CBS said when they suspended production that they were “profoundly concerned” about Sheen's “health and well-being” and supported his decision to begin rehab.

Sheen, in his interview, said that he has made a quick recovery from his drug and alcohol-fueled binge.

“Check it, it's like I heal really quickly. But I unravel pretty quickly. So get me right now, guys,” Sheen said.

At another point, Sheen suggested that people should avoid crack cocaine “unless you can manage it socially.”

Sheen, who recently agreed to the terms of his divorce from estranged wife Brooke Mueller, was asked if he thought that he could manage crack socially. “Well, yeah, but that kinda blew up in my face,” he said.

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