Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow at the Friends reunion (Courtesy HBO Max)
Matthew Perry is ready to share the truth about his life with his millions of fans. the protagonist of “Friends”53, popular for his portrayal of Chandler Bing on the hit TV series, will release his memoir in November. “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing”who describes his journey with incredible moments and other devastating ones.
In his first interview talking about his book, the actor explains how he’s doing drug and alcohol addiction secretly they almost cost him his life.
“I wanted to share my life when I felt like I was safe from going back to the dark side,” the actor told People magazine exclusively in this week’s cover story. “I had to wait until I was fairly sober and away from alcoholism and addiction to write it all down. And the main thing was that I was pretty sure it would help people.”
The actor fought for his life for several weeks due to a gastrointestinal perforation caused by opioid overuse. i pass two weeks in a coma and hospitalized for five months and had to wear a colostomy bag for nine months.
When he was first admitted to the hospital, “my family doctors said I had a 2% chance of survival,” he recalls. “They put me in a thing called an ECMO machine that does all the breathing for your heart and lungs. They call it Hail Mary. Nobody survives that.”
“Doctors told my family I had a 2 percent chance of survival,” the actor admitted in his memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.
When Perry first appeared on Friends at the age of 24, his alcohol addiction was just beginning to surface. “I could handle it, more or less. But by the time I was 34, I was in really big trouble,” he admitted. “But there were years when I was sober during that time. Season 9 was the year I was sober all the time. And guess what season I was nominated for Best Actor? I thought, ‘That should tell me something.’”
In a terrifying moment at the height of her career, Perry was taking 55 Vicodin pills a day and weighing 130 pounds. “I didn’t know how to quit,” he said. “If the police came to my house and said, ‘If you drink tonight, we’ll take you to jail,’ I would start packing. Dependencies are progressive. So it gets worse with age.”
Although Perry tried to hide her condition, the dramatic changes in her appearance each year were a reflection of her status. His co-stars “were understanding and patient,” he said. “It’s like penguins. Penguins, in the wild, when you are sick or seriously injured, the other penguins will surround you and hold you. They walk around him until the penguin can walk on his own. The cast did it for me.”
Open about his relapses (he’s been to rehab 15 times over the years), Perry keeps aloof from his past. “I’m pretty healthy now.”
The “Friends” cast: Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer (Getty Images)
He prefers not to reveal how long he’s been sober, but he still counts every day. “It’s important, but losing your sobriety doesn’t mean you’re losing all that time and tools,” he stressed. “Your sobriety date changes, but that’s all that changes. You know everything you knew before, as long as you can fight back without dying, you learn a lot.”
It also has its scars: so far it has had 14 gastric surgeries: “That’s a lot of reminders about staying sober. I just have to look down.”
His push to quit drug use? “My therapist said, ‘The next time you think about taking Oxycontin, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life,'” she recalled of that conversation. “And a little window opened up and I crawled through and I don’t want any more Oxycontin.”
Matthew Perry looks unrecognizable in California, USA. (The Grosby Group)
Now Perry is more determined than ever to help others who are also struggling with addiction. “That night five people were hooked up to an ECMO machine and the other four died and I survived,” he said. “So the big question is why? why did i leave There has to be a reason.”
For those who read the book, “I think you’ll be surprised at how bad it got at certain points and how close I was to death.”
“I say in the book that it would shock people if he died, but it wouldn’t surprise anyone. And living with that is very scary. So I hope that people will relate and know that this disease affects everyone. It doesn’t matter if you succeed or not, the disease doesn’t care.”
“I’m an extremely grateful guy. I am grateful to be alive. And that gives me the opportunity to do everything,” he said.
The journey, while incredibly dark at times, has made Perry stronger “in every way,” he pointed out. “What surprises me the most is my resilience. How to recover from all this torture and horror. Wanting to tell the story, even though it’s a bit scary to tell all your secrets in one book. Everything is there It is also a story full of hope. Because here I am.”
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The photos of Matthew Perry sparking concern in the midst of his battle with addiction. Matthew Perry signed a millionaire deal to talk about the origins of Friends and his addiction