Matthew Perry is lucky to be alive.
the friends star, 53, details his struggles with opioid and alcoholaddiction in his new memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,_which comes out Nov. 1. Hey spoke to _people magazine about his revelations,including that he was given a “2 percent chance to live” just four years agowhen was on life support.
In 2018, Perry, then 49, spent months in the hospital recovering from surgeryfrom what his publicist said was a gastrointestinal perforation. However, hisbook details how he was actually in the fight of his life after his colonburst from opioid abuse. He was in a coma for two weeks and on life support.In total, he spent five months in the hospital recovering and had to use acolostomy bag for nine months.
“The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live,” Perry toldthe outlet. “I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all thebreathing for your heart and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No onesurvives that.”
He did, adding another alarming statistic, “There were five people put on anECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived. So the bigquestion is why? Why was I the one? There has to be some kind of reason .” Andthat has prompted the star, best known for playing lovable Chandler Bing totell his story.
A former child star, he joined the cast of friends at age 24 when hisalcohol addiction was starting. By the time he was 34 — around the time theshow was ending — “I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble.” At one point,he was taking 55 Vicodin a day and was down to 128 pounds.
“I didn’t know how to stop,” he admitted. “If the police came over to my houseand said, ‘If you drink tonight, we’re going to take you to jail,’ I’d startpacking. I couldn’t stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive.So it gets worse and worse as you grow older.” He added that there were somesober points during friends including the entirety of Season 9, whichresulted in an Emmy nomination for Best Actor.
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Matthew Perry puts it all out there about his drug and alcohol abuse in hisnew memoir. (Photo: REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)
He said his castmates — Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, MattLeBlanc and David Schwimmer — were protective of him as he struggled.
“It’s like penguins. Penguins, in nature, when one is sick, or when one isvery injured, the other penguins surround it and prop it up,” he said. “Theywalk around it until that penguin can walk on its own. That’s kind of what thecast did for me.”
Friends: The Reunion aired on HBO Max in 2021 bringing Perry back togetherwith his castmates Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, DavidSchwimmer and Matt LeBlanc. He said his co-stars propped him up when hestruggled with addiction while shooting the original show, which ran from 1994to 2004. (Photo: Terence Patrick/HBO Max)
Perry said he did 15 stints in rehab over the years and had 14 surgeries onhis stomach. He won’t publicly share how long he’s been sober, as it’schanged, but he counts it each day.
He says the scars across his stomach from the surgeries are “a lot ofreminders to stay sober. All I have to do is look down.” And having to use acolostomy for nine months is also a deterrent.
“My therapist said, ‘The next time you think about taking Oxycontin, justthink about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life,'” Perryrecalled. “And a little window opened and I crawled through it and I no longerwant Oxycontin anymore.”
Perry said he’s an “extremely grateful guy. I’m grateful to be alive, that’sfor sure” and his book is “filled with hope — because here I am.” He felt OKwriting about it now because he’s “pretty safely sober and away from theactive disease of alcoholism and addiction.” However, the nitty gritty of itall will likely shock his long-time fans.
“I think they’ll be surprised at how bad it got at certain times and how closeto dying I came,” he said. “I say in the book that if I did die, it wouldshock people, but it wouldn’t surprise anybody. And that’s a very scary thingto be living with. So my hope is that people will relate to it, and know thatthis disease attacks everybody. It doesn’t matter if you’re successful or notsuccessful, the disease doesn’t care.”