Friends star Matthew Perry talks about addiction battle in new memoir, including how he almost died
The actor spent two weeks in a coma and five months in hospital in 2018 when his colon burst due to opioid overuse.
Matthew Perry attends the opening night on Broadway of Lucas Hnath's A Doll's House, Part 2 starring Laurie Metcalf and Chris Cooper at Golden Theatre on Apr 27, 2017 in New York City. Noam Galai/Getty Images for A Doll's House, Part 2/AFP
Matthew Perry, who played Chandler Bing in the popular sitcom Friends, has opened up about his battle with addiction in his new memoir, Friends, Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing, slated for release on Nov 1.
The 53-year-old actor spoke to People magazine ahead of the book’s release, saying that he “wanted to share when (he) was safe from going into the dark side of everything again”.
“I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober – and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction – to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.”
Among the things he shared is the fact that he nearly died in 2018 when his colon burst due to opioid overuse. He spent two weeks in a coma and five months in hospital. He also used a colostomy bag for nine months.
“The doctors told my family I had a 2 per cent chance to live. I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No one survives that,” he told People.
Perry also shared that “there were years” when he was sober, including during season nine of Friends, where he was “sober the whole way through”.
However, he struggled to stay sober – there was a point during his time on Friends that he was taking 55 Vicodin pills a day and was down to 128 pounds (58kg).
When it came to his cast mates, Perry described them as “penguins”.
“Penguins, in nature, when one is sick, or when one is very injured, the other penguins surround it and prop it up. They walk around it until that penguin can walk on its own. That’s kind of what the cast did for me.”
Perry told the magazine that he’d been in rehab 15 times during the years but is now sober.
He said that while “it’s scary to tell all your secrets in a book”, he didn’t leave anything out. “My hope is that people will relate to it, and know that this disease attacks everybody. It doesn't matter if you're successful or not successful, the disease doesn't care."
He added: "I'm grateful to be alive, that's for sure. And that gives me the possibility to do anything."
