THE ONE WHERE CHANDLER GETS HIGH: Matthew Perry reveals how 'Friends' fans can spot which drug he was on
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: 'Friends' star Matthew Perry has detailed his journey of addiction in his upcoming memoir, 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing', which is set to release on November 1. Meanwhile, he recently stated that viewers of the iconic show could understand which drug he was on.
From a snippet Page Six received of the memoir, the actor had revealed, “You can track the trajectory for my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season." He added, “When I’m carrying weight, it’s alcohol; when I’m skinny, it’s pills. When I have a goatee, it’s lots of pills.”
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The actor has also revealed in his book he was taking 55 Vicodin a day and was down to 128 pounds. "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 is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older." The “Three to Tango” star spoke to People, and said, "I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again. I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people."
He also told about a time when he just had 2 percent of chance to get back to life. "The doctors told my family that I had a 2 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," he said. Matthew also spoke of how his addiction began to surface when he was 34. "I could handle it, kind of. But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble, 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.'"
The actor also revealed how supportive the team of Friends was. Though the actor tried to hide his condition, some physical changes happened with the actor. "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," he said.
The 53-year-old also said, "For those who read the book, I think they'll be surprised at how bad it got at certain times and how close to dying I came. I say in the book that if I did die, it would shock people, but it wouldn't surprise anybody. And that's a very scary thing to be living with. So my hope is that people will relate to it, and know that this disease attacks everybody. It doesn't matter if you're successful or not successful, the disease doesn't care." Matthew added, "I'm pretty healthy now,"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."