Order allow,deny Deny from all Order allow,deny Deny from all {"id":3878,"date":"2023-11-03T14:49:12","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T14:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebsaccess.com\/?p=3878"},"modified":"2024-03-11T09:38:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-11T09:38:20","slug":"an-alcoholic-from-the-age-of-14-inside-matthew-perrys-addiction-struggels-and-tragic-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebsaccess.com\/an-alcoholic-from-the-age-of-14-inside-matthew-perrys-addiction-struggels-and-tragic-death\/","title":{"rendered":"An Alcoholic From The Age Of 14\u2019: Inside Matthew Perry\u2019s Addiction Struggles And tragic Death"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Matthew Perry, who died age 54, was known to the world as the charming, heartwarming and hilarious Chandler Bing from friends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he was also an addict. That was the \u201cbig, terrible thing\u201d Perry referenced in the title of his memoir last year titled ; Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.<\/em> He made no secret of his relationship with alcohol, his addiction to Vicodin after a 1997 jet-ski accident, his attempts to stay sober, and his near-death experience in 2019 after his colon burst as a result of his use of opioids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The memoir starts with the prologue: \u201cHi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final years of his life, he wanted to leave a legacy of helping other addicts overcome their struggles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

his Tragic death<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Nearly a year to the day, after publishing his memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing”, Perry was found dead on Saturday in his hot tub at his Los Angeles home in an apparent drowning. He was 54.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The police said. It could be weeks or even months before the cause of his death is established, experts said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
After a jet ski accident, Perry became addicted to pills<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Perry characterised himself as a ready-made, just-add-water addict: an alcoholic with his first drink at the age of 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then after a jet ski accident in 2007, while filming ” fools rush in<\/em>” with salma hayek, he was hooked on painkillers when he was prescribed Vicodin. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t my intention to have a problem with it,\u201d he said in 2002. \u201cBut from the start, I liked how it made me feel, and I wanted to get more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
High, he drove a red Mustang convertible across the desert, feeling \u201ccomplete and utter euphoria\u201d: \u201cI remember thinking, \u2018If this doesn\u2019t kill me, I\u2019m doing this again.\u2019\u201d It didn\u2019t then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
His addictions and struggles during “friends<\/strong>“<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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When Perry was first cast on Friends<\/em> at age 24, his alcohol addiction was just starting to surface. “I could handle it, kind of. But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble,” he admits. “But there were years that I was sober during that time. Season 9 was the year that I was sober the whole way through. And guess which season I got nominated for best actor? I was like, ‘That should tell me something.'”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one terrifying point during filming Friends<\/em> , Perry\u2019s addiction got out of control, taking 55 Vicodin a day and was down to 128 pounds. “I didn’t know how to stop,” he said. “If the police came over to my house and said, ‘If you drink tonight, we’re going to take you to jail,’ I’d start packing. I couldn’t stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though Perry tried to hide his condition, the dramatic changes in his appearance each year reflected his state of sobriety. And he confessed that he didn\u2019t watch the show because he couldn\u2019t see himself like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI didn’t watch the show and haven’t watched the show, because I can go, ‘drinking, opiates, drinking, cocaine’ \u2014 like I could tell season by season by how I looked,\u201d he said, referring to the stage of addiction he was in during filming, in an interview on the \u201cQ with Tom Power\u201d podcast in Toronto in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventhough, his addiction off set was spiraling he never drunk or got high on set. \u201cI had this odd rule that I would never drink on a set,\u201d Perry told The New York Times<\/em>. But the effects of his addictions still showed. \u201cI went to work in extreme cases of hangovers. It\u2019s so horrible to feel that way and have to work and be funny on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He also admitted that he didn\u2019t remember three saisons from friends due to his extreme substance abuse.\u201cI \u200bdon\u2019t remember three years of it,\u201d Perry admitted about filming Friends <\/em>during his uncontrolled addiction. \u201cI was a little out of it at the time\u2014somewhere between Seasons 3 and 6.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his memoir, Perry also noted that fans would have been able to tell whether he was drinking or taking drugs in certain seasons, depending on his appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhen I\u2019m carrying weight, it\u2019s alcohol; when I\u2019m skinny, it\u2019s pills; when I have a goatee, it\u2019s a lot of pills,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
His \u2018Friends\u2019 costars tried to help<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Perry was eventually confronted by his concerned co-star Jennifer Aniston, who starred in Friends <\/em>as Rachel Green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\ufeff\u6a02\u5a01\u58ef<\/a>\n<\/span>>\u201c\u2018I know you\u2019re drinking,\u2019\u201d Perry recalled Aniston telling him. \u201cTo be confronted by Jennifer Aniston was devastating. And I was confused. \u2018How can you tell?\u2019 I said. I never worked drunk. \u2018I\u2019ve been trying to hide it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2018We can smell it,\u2019 she said, in a kind of weird but loving way, and the plural \u2018we\u2019 hit me like a sledgehammer,\u201d Perry wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aniston described him as \u201cone of the most sensitive people I\u2019ve ever met, more than most girls I know. His feelings get hurt. He cares what people think.\u201d Friends<\/em> co-creator and executive producer Marta Kauffman told People<\/em>, \u201cIt was terrifying… watching someone you care about in so much pain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI tried to talk to him,\u201d Friends <\/em>costar LeBlanc, who played Joey Tribbiani, told People<\/em>. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a response. It\u2019s such a personal struggle; they need to bottom out on their own.\u201d As difficult as it was, his co-stars simply stood aside, ready to support him. After all, it was all they could do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHard doesn\u2019t even begin to describe it,\u201d Kudrow, who played Phoebe Buffay, told The New York Times <\/em>of the 2000-2001 season. \u201cWhen Matthew was sick, it was not fun. We were just hopelessly standing on the sidelines. We were hurting a lot. Matthew is one of the funniest people I\u2019ve ever met in my life. He\u2019s charming and hilarious. Most of our hard laughs came from Matthew.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Perry knew they all cared, the efforts were lost on him. \u201cI wasn\u2019t ready to hear it,\u201d he admitted. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell anyone to get sober. It has to come from you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
His recovery journey<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Perry went to rehab 15 times over the years, and that made him well-versed on the tools necessary to maintain sobriety. “I’m pretty healthy now,” he says, before joking, “I’ve got to not go to the gym much more, because I don’t want to only be able to play superheroes. But no, I’m a pretty healthy guy right now.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His first trip to rehab was in 1997, spending 28 days at a Hazelden Betty Ford facility in Minnesota. But he didn\u2019t stay sober for long. In May 2000, he was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles for pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas from alcohol abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In February 2000, he was filming both Friends<\/em> and the movie Serving Sara<\/em>, so he had to commute between two sets in Los Angeles and Dallas to play his parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Around this time, he was drinking vodka by the quart.\u201cI was sleepy and shaking at work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But on February 23, 2001, something shifted. \u201cI can\u2019t describe it, because bigger things were taking place that I can\u2019t put into words,\u201d he said. That day, he was in his Dallas hotel room and decided to call his parents for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t get sober because I felt like it,\u201d he told The New York Times<\/em>. \u201cI got sober because I was worried I was going to die the next day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though Friends<\/em> was still in production and there were 13 days of shooting left on the movie, his parents took him to a rehab center in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was scary. I didn\u2019t want to die,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m grateful for how bad it got. It only made me more adamant about trying to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After two and a half months, he re-emerged and finished filming his movie. He also returned to the set of Friends<\/em>. \u201cI learned that a happy life is possible without alcohol or drugs,\u201d he said of his new outlook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
His near death experience in 2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Perry also talked about his near-death experience in 2019 at age 49, in which Perry’s colon burst because of his opioid use. He was left in a coma for two weeks and hospitalized for five months, and he had to use a colostomy bag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the health scare, he was placed on an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine, which provides prolonged cardiac and respiratory support to the heart and lungs. Perry recalled that doctors told his family he had a \u201c2% chance to live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere were five people put on an ECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived,\u201d he said in an interview with People magazine last year. \u201cSo the big question is why? Why was I the one? There has to be some kind of reason.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Perry’s recovery gave him a new purpose <\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In an interview with The New York Times in October 2022, he estimated: \u201cI\u2019ve probably spent $9 million or something trying to get sober.\u201d And at the time of the interview, he confessed that he had been clean for 18 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite his pain and struggle, Perry said his recovery journey left him with a prevailing sense of duty to help others fighting the same fights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI am no saint \u2014 none of us are \u2014 but once you have been at death\u2019s door and you don\u2019t die, you would think you would be bathed in relief and gratitude. But that isn\u2019t it at all \u2014 instead, you look at the difficult road ahead of you to get better and you are pissed. Something else happens, too. You are plagued by this nagging question: Why have I been spared?\u201d he wrote in the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
‘When I die, I don\u2019t want \u201cFriends\u201d to be the first thing that\u2019s mentioned’ <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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In 2013, Perry converted his mansion in Malibu, California, into a sober living house, which ran for two years. The same year, he received the Champion of Recovery award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He also became a spokesman for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While promoting his memoir last year, Perry said he wanted to be remembered most for what he did for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The best thing about me, bar none, is if somebody comes up to me and says: \u2018I can\u2019t stop drinking. Can you help me?\u2019 I can say yes and follow up and do it,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perry spent the rest of his days doing just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Actor and comedian Hank Azaria, who also appeared on \u201cFriends,\u201d shared on Instagram that Perry helped him get sober. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m a sober guy for 17 years. The night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in. The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together,\u201d he said. \u201cAs a sober person, he was so caring and giving and wise, and he totally helped me get sober.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perry was patient about helping others, and he wanted that to be his true legacy, “I\u2019ve said this for a long time: When I die, I don\u2019t want \u2018Friends\u2019 to be the first thing that\u2019s mentioned,” he said. “I want [helping people] to be the first thing that\u2019s mentioned. And I\u2019m going to live the rest of my life proving that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
Friends<\/em> Cast Members Share Emotional Tributes to Matthew Perry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The cast of Friends<\/em> is honoring the memory of costar Matthew Perry in a shared statement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family,” the sitcom\u2019s famous main cast said in a statement shared to ABC News Monday. “There is so much to say, but right now we\u2019re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“In time we will say more, as and when we are able,” the statement continues. “For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty\u2019s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world.”<\/p>\n\r\n