Matthew Perry Confesses He Was Given Just 2% Chance of Living After His Colon Burst Due To Opioid Addiction

Matthew Perry is grateful to beryllium alive. The 53-year-old comedic histrion who brought Chandler Bing to beingness connected Friends opened up astir his past struggles with drugs and intoxicant successful his caller memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. Four years ago, erstwhile helium was 49, Matthew was rushed to the infirmary with gastrointestinal perforation, but unbeknownst to the public, helium was warring for his beingness aft his colon burst from opioid overuse. “The doctors told my household that I had a 2 percent accidental to live,” Perry writes successful a enactment of his memoir published by PEOPLE. “I was enactment connected a happening called an ECMO machine, which does each the breathing for your bosom and your lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. No 1 survives that.”

As it turns out, Matthew spent 2 weeks successful a coma, and 5 much months hospitalized. He besides had to usage a colostomy container for 9 months, thing that wasn’t publically known. He besides revealed however overmuch the drugs had taken implicit his life, admitting that during his clip connected Friends, Matthew was taking 55 Vicodin pills a time and was down to 128 pounds.” I didn’t cognize however to stop,” helium writes. “If the constabulary came implicit to my location and said, ‘If you portion tonight, we’re going to instrumentality you to jail,’ I’d commencement packing. I couldn’t halt due to the fact that the illness and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse arsenic you turn older.”

(Dave Allocca/Starpix/Shutterstock)

Matthew writes that by the clip helium was 34, helium was “really entrenched successful a batch of trouble” with his addiction. “But determination were years that I was sober during that time. Season 9 was the twelvemonth that I was sober the full mode through. And conjecture which play I got nominated for champion actor? I was like, ‘That should archer maine something.'”

Sobriety didn’t travel easy. Matthew wrote that helium went to rehab 15 times implicit the years, but now, helium says that he’s “a beauteous steadfast guy” close now. “It’s important, but if you suffer your sobriety, it doesn’t mean you suffer each that clip and education,” helium says. “Your sober day changes, but that’s each that changes. You cognize everything you knew before, arsenic agelong arsenic you were capable to combat your mode backmost without dying, you larn a lot.”

(Dave Allocca/Starpix/Shutterstock)

His clip successful the infirmary has been a large motivator to enactment clean. “My therapist said, ‘The adjacent clip you deliberation astir taking Oxycontin, conscionable deliberation astir having a colostomy container for the remainder of your life,'” helium writes. “And a small model opened and I crawled done it and I nary longer privation Oxycontin anymore.”

Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir is disposable Nov. 1 from Flatiron books