Matthew Perry always had been open about his battle with drugs and alcohol through the years, but he went even deeper in his 2002 memoir, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.”
Nov. 1 marks the first anniversary since his book hit shelves, which is just days after the beloved actor died at age 54 from an apparent drowning at his California home. Amid the tragedy, some of his quotes are resurfacing.
“For all of the sufferers out there. You know who you are,” the dedication reads.
Before his prologue, written by “Friends” co-star Lisa Kudrow, he also listed two quotes from Robert Frost and James Taylor, respectively.
“The best way out is always through,” Frost’s reads, giving insight into Perry’s journey to getting sober.
Taylor’s notes: “You’ve just got to see me through another day.”
In the book, the “Fools Rush In” actor said that he attended 6,000 AA meetings, went to rehab 15 times, and had been in detox 65 times. The actor also estimated he spent around $9 million trying to get clean.
His addiction to Vicodin began following a 1997 jet-ski accident, and he’d go on to admit he attended open houses to steal medications from stranger’s homes at the height of his fame.
In 2019, his colon also burst because of his past opioid use. He was left in a coma for two weeks and hospitalized for five months while using a colostomy bag. Perry, then 49, recalled the doctor telling his family he had a “2% chance to live” at the time.
“Hi, my name is Matthew, although you may know me by another name. My friends call me Matty. And I should be dead,” the first page of his memoir reads.
“If you like, you can consider what you’re about to read to be a message from the beyond, my beyond.”
As he played Chandler Bing for 10 seasons — from 1994 to 2004 — Perry said that at one point was taking 55 Vicodin pills a day and had dropped to just 128 pounds. It was so obvious that he refused to watch the show years later.
“I didn’t watch the show and haven’t watched the show, because I can go, ‘drinking, opiates, drinking, cocaine’ — like I could tell season by season by how I looked,” he said during an interview with “Q with Tom Power” podcast in Toronto last November.
His cast members were always supportive of what he was facing through it all.
“They were understanding, and they were patient,” he wrote. “It’s like penguins. In nature, when one is sick or very injured, the other penguins surround it and prop it up and walk around until that penguin can walk on its own. And that’s kind of what the cast did for me.”
Jennifer Aniston, in particular, was the one who confronted him one day.
“She was the one that reached out the most. You know, I’m really grateful to her for that,” he told Diane Sawyer during a promotional press tour in October 2022, noting she told him “we know you’re drinking.”
“Yeah, imagine how scary a moment that was,” he added. “I should have been the toast of the town, but I was in a dark room meeting with nothing but drug dealers and completely alone.”
Aniston, Kudrow and their other co-stars — Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc and David Schwimmer — broke their silence on Perry’s death on Monday.
“We are all so utterly devastated by the loss of Matthew. We were more than just cast mates. We are a family,” read their statement, obtained by People. “There is so much to say, but right now we’re going to take a moment to grieve and process this unfathomable loss.”
“In time we will say more, as and when we are able,” the statement continued. “For now, our thoughts and our love are with Matty’s family, his friends, and everyone who loved him around the world.”
Perry’s 2019 hospital stay is what ultimately motivated him to get sober. He also quit drinking after having an encounter with God in his kitchen.
“It was this bright yellow object that became all-encompassing. I couldn’t see the kitchen anymore,” he recalled to People. “It was just this light, and I felt loved and understood, and in the company of God or whatever. My dad was right next to me and we were holding hands and I was praying when it started, which is something I rarely did. It was like God showed me what’s possible. And then said, ‘Okay. Now you go learn this.’”
“I am no saint — none of us are — but once you have been at death’s door and you don’t die, you would think you would be bathed in relief and gratitude,” he wrote in his book. “But that isn’t it at all — 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?”
In 2022, Perry stated in an interview that he hoped he would be remembered more as “somebody who lived well, loved well” and “was a seeker” than his role on “Friends.”
In his memoir, he also left readers with a positive outlook on what he hoped his future would look like.
“Love and courage, man — the two most important things. I don’t move forward with fear anymore — I move forward with curiosity. I have an incredible support group around me, and they save me every day, because I have known hell. Hell has definable features, and I want no part of it. But I have the courage to face it, at least,” he wrote in the final pages.
“Who am I going to be? Whoever it is I will take it on as a man who has finally acquired the taste for life. I fought that taste, man, I fought it hard. But in the end admitting defeat was winning Addiction, the big terrible thing, is far too powerful for anyone to defeat alone. But together, one day at a time, we can beat it down.”
“The one thing that I got right was that I never gave up, I never raised my hands and said, ‘That’s enough, I can’t take it anymore, you win,’” he continued. “And because of that, I stand tall now, ready for whatever comes next.”
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