Matthew Perry’s Health Struggles and Sobriety Battle: What He Had to Say in His 2022 Memoir

Actor Matthew Perry passed away on Saturday and many fans are devastated by the timing. Not only did Perry die young and unexpectedly at the age of 54, but he had just recently opened up about his private struggles in an unprecedented way. Back in November of 2022, Perry published his book Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir.

It’s been no secret that Perry battled alcoholism and drug addiction – particularly at the height of his fame when he was constantly on the world stage. While fans might have been able to track the nitty gritty details like when he was trying to sober up, when he was admitted to rehab facilities and other matters of public record, Perry decided to share those stories in his own words last year. He wrote that he was doing so to combat the stigma around addiction and hopefully help other people like him get the help they need.

Perry’s revelations began during the press tour before the book was released. In an interview with The New York Times, he admitted that he was in a rehab facility when they filmed the Friends Season 7 finale, and he got a special dispensation to leave to shoot his character Chandler’s wedding scenes. When it was over, he said he was “driven back to the treatment center …in a pickup truck helmed by a sober technician.”

“[I was] at the height of my highest point in Friends, the highest point in my career, the iconic moment on the iconic show,” he said. “When you’re a drug addict, it’s all math. I wasn’t doing it to feel high or to feel good. I certainly wasn’t a partyer; I just wanted to sit on my couch, take five Vicodin and watch a movie. That was heaven for me. It no longer is.”

Perry outlined his addiction from its start, saying that he was prescribed Vicodin in 1997 after a jet-ski accident and became addicted to it very quickly. He entered rehab that very same year for the first time, but his war with addiction would have many more battles over the years. He said that things were at their worst during Friends Season 3 when he said he was taking as many as 55 Vicodin pills per day.

Perry would buy prescription drugs illegally and said that some of the ones he was using were OxyContin, Dilaudid, Xanax, methadone, buprenorphine and suboxone. He also used amphetamines and cocaine, and said that he supplemented it all with “lots of vodka.” However, he said that his financial situation didn’t change when he sought treatment, telling NYT: “I’ve probably spent $9 million or something trying to get sober.”

Still, contrary to popular belief, Perry said that he never got high while working on Friends, feeling that there was too much at stake for the rest of the cast and crew. However, he said that his drug abuse impacted his performance on the show and often left him hungover or strung out on set. He recalled: “One time, in a scene in the coffeehouse when I’m dressed in a suit, I fell asleep right there on the couch, and disaster was averted only when Matt LeBlanc nudged me awake right before my line; no one noticed, but I knew how close I’d come.”

Perry also revealed how the years of drug use impacted his health, describing the 2018 health emergency that made headlines when his colon burst and he experienced gastrointestinal perforation. The condition was a direct result of drug overuse, and it put Perry in a coma for two weeks and in a hospital bed for five months. He told PEOPLE: “The doctors told my family that I had a two percent 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.”

The circumstances of Perry’s death this weekend are still not entirely clear, but according to TMZ, the actor was found dead in his jacuzzi at home with no drugs or alcohol nearby. No foul play is suspected, but an official cause of death has not been released. You can find Perry’s book in print, digital and audiobook formats now.