¡®No One Survives That¡¯: Matthew Perry Says He Nearly Died After His Colon Burst From Opioid Abuse
Perry, now 53, was hospitalized for five months to recover after spending two months in a coma. For nine months, he was also required to use a colostomy bag.
Did you know that in 2018, Friends actor Matthew Perry almost died? Due to his issues with opioids, Matthew Perry faced a scary health crisis. The actor revealed that his colon burst due to excessive drug use several years ago, at 49.
His memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, comes out on November 1 and takes readers behind the scenes of his time as Chandler Bing on the famous tv show Friends in 1994.
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Matthew also opens up about his struggles with addiction.
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Perry, now 53, was hospitalized for five months to recover after spending two months in a coma. For nine months, he was also required to use a colostomy bag.
Agencies
"I had a 2% Chance to live"
"The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live," he told PEOPLE in this week's cover story.
"I was put on an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and lungs. And that's called a Hail Mary. No one survives that."
His troubles with alcohol began when he was cast in Friends in the early '90s at 24.
DigitalSpy
"I could handle it, kind of. But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble," Perry said. "But there were years that I was sober during that time." The sitcom's season 9, circa 2002, "was the year that I was sober the whole way through," Perry said. "And guess which season I got nominated for best actor? I was like, 'That should tell me something.'"
"I took 55 Vicodin daily"
NBC
During one of his lowest points, the actor, who has long been vocal about his struggles with addiction while filming the sitcom, weighed 128 pounds and took 55 Vicodins daily.
"I didn't know how to stop. 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 were progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older."
"All my FRIENDS' co-actors were patient with me"
Matthew shared that costars Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, David Schwimmer, and Matt LeBlanc were understanding and patient with him.
"It's like 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."
"I went to rehab about 15 times"
Perry, who has visited rehab about 15 times, was "pretty healthy" at the time and stated his desire to assist others through similar struggles. He's also simply grateful to be alive.
"I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again," Perry said.
"I had to wait to write it all down until I was pretty safely sober ¡ª and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people."
Perry is best known for playing the sarcastic Chandler Bing in the hit television series Friends, where he appeared for ten seasons.
He just made it back together with his co-stars for the HBO Max 2021 reunion special. The Odd Couple, The Good Fight, and The Kennedys After Camelot are a few of Perry's most recent television appearances.
Matthew's book Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing will be available from 1st November.
(With agency inputs)
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