'I had a 2 percent chance to live': Matthew Perry reveals how addiction sent him to death's door at 49
MALIBU, CALIFORNIA: Matthew Perry, who is known to have a drug and alcohol addiction, recently revealed how his struggle reached its pinnacle when he “nearly died” at the age of 49 when his colon burst due to opioid overuse.
At the time of his health scare, the 53-year-old 'Friends' alum publicly acknowledged that he suffered from a gastrointestinal perforation. But he now admits that he originally spent two weeks in a coma and five months in the hospital and was forced to use a colostomy bag for nine months.
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Matthew Perry's memoir titled 'Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing' to release in November
“The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live,” he told People. “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.”
“I’m pretty healthy now,” he told the magazine, 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.” The ‘Three to Tango’ star didn’t disclose for how long he has been sober but stated that he has been counting each and every day.
“It’s important, but if you lose your sobriety, it doesn’t mean you lose all that time and education,” he said. “Your sober date changes, but that’s all that changes.” He continued, “You know everything you knew before, as long as you were able to fight your way back without dying, you learn a lot.”
Further in the conversation, Perry also admitted that at one terrifying point during his 'Friends' days, he was consuming 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."
The shocking revelation came after Perry, who rose to fame playing Chandler Bing in ‘Friends', announced his new memoir titled 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing'. The memoir, set to hit bookshelves on November 1, contains Perry's reflections on the happy days and describes how his drug and alcohol addictions consumed his life.
Talking about the book, Perry said the readers will “be surprised at how bad it got at certain times and how close to dying I came." He continued, "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."