2023-10-30 21:13:00
(CNN) — Matthew Perry achieved worldwide fame and success in his career bringing joy to audiences around the planet. However, off screen he lived with the pain that comes with suffering from an addiction.
During the 10 seasons he starred in “Friends,” one of the most popular comedies of all time, Perry tried to overcome his drug and alcohol use. In her 2022 autobiography, “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir,” she revealed that she attended 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and entered rehab 15 times.
Perry wrote regarding the loneliness he experienced during cycles of substance abuse and recovery, and strived to help others going through the same thing. Following Perry’s death on Saturday, October 28, the actor Hank Azaria He paid tribute to him on Instagram and described how his old friend helped him stay sober.
“I’ve been sober for 17 years, and I want to say, the night I went into Alcoholics Anonymous, Matthew took me there. The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together,” Azaria said. “He was so loving and generous and wise. And he totally helped me get sober. And I really wish that he had, you know, found… found in himself how to stay with that life more consistently,” he added.
For Perry, it was a priority to help others with struggles similar to his own.
“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life and a lot of wonderful accolades,” Perry told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. “The best thing regarding me is that if an alcoholic comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me stop drinking?’ I’ll say, ‘Yes, I know how to do that.'”
Here’s a look at some key moments in Perry’s life.
“Friends”
Matt LeBlanc as Joey Tribbiani, Lisa Kudrow as Phoebe Buffay, David Schwimmer as Ross Geller, Matthew Perry as Chandler Bing, Courteney Cox as Monica Geller, Jennifer Aniston as Rachel Green in the first season of “Friends.” (Credit: Reisig & Taylor/NBCUniversal/Getty Images)
Perry played the adorable, witty and sarcastic Chandler Bing in “Friends”, which premiered in 1994. The series and its protagonists quickly rose to fame.
A sweet connection
Perry and Julia Roberts became friends before she appeared as a guest on the second season of “Friends.” In her book, Perry wrote that Roberts agreed to appear on the series only if she might be in a story with Chandler Bing. Perry sent her roses and a card that said, “The only thing more exciting than the prospect of you being on the show is that I finally have an excuse to send you flowers.”
After months of sweet fax exchanges, the two began dating in 1995, Perry wrote. Their relationship lasted six months before the actor, describing her addiction at the time and her feeling of not being enough, broke up with her out of fear.
“Dating Julia Roberts had been too much for me. I was constantly certain she was going to break up with me,” Perry wrote in his book. “I wasn’t enough; I might never be enough; I was broken, broken, no one might love me. So instead of facing the inevitable agony of losing her, I broke up with the beautiful and brilliant Julia Roberts,” she said.
Julia Roberts and Matthew Perry in “Friends.” (Credit: IMDB)
A recipe for pain
Perry revealed in his book that he began abusing prescription drugs following suffering a jet ski accident on the set of “Fools Rush In” in 1997, when he was prescribed Vicodin. She took up to 55 pills a day, she wrote, which caused her considerable weight loss, visible on “Friends.”
Perry received treatment at Minnesota’s Hazelden Betty Ford Center in 1997 for a month.
An important moment in his career, overshadowed by addiction
In 2000, Perry revealed that he consumed alcohol excessively and was hospitalized for pancreatitis. The actor wrote in his book that he was prescribed Dilaudid, an opioid for pain.
“It was my new favorite drug,” he said. “And I would have stayed a hundred days in that hospital if they had followed me [administrando]”.
Now, Perry claimed that he did not work under its influence.
“Never when I work”, he recalled in an interview 2002. “But the hangover is brutal. I was sleepy and shivering at work.”
He was treated once more while filming the finale of the seventh season of “Friends” in 2001.
“I married Monica and was taken back to the treatment center — at the height of my ‘Friends’ career, in the iconic series’ iconic moment — in a van driven by a sober technician,” Perry wrote.
“The One With Monica And Chandler’s Wedding” first aired on May 17, 2001. (Credit: Danny Feld/NBCU/Getty Images/IMDB)
Focused on staying sober
Perry spent two and a half months in rehab, finished filming “Serving Sara” and returned to the set of “Friends.” He said that at the time he was focused on getting better.
“It’s all regarding a spiritual connection to something that’s bigger than you,” he told People magazine in 2002. “That’s where the center of life is. As for the rest, I’m lucky to have a cool car.” and a lot of money. But if you don’t have happiness inside and don’t think regarding others first, you will feel alone and miserable in a big house.”
Perry was praised for his work on “Friends.” He won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble Performance in a Comedy Series and was also nominated for five Emmys for various roles.
Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry y David Schwimmer. (Crédito: NBC/Getty Images/IMDB)
Find a new purpose
In 2011, Perry said in a statement that although he had not relapsed, he was planning to take a leave of absence “for a month to focus on my sobriety and continue my life in recovery. Please enjoy making fun of me on the World Wide Web.”
In 2013, Perry converted his former Malibu beach house into a sober living facility.
Hospitalization
In 2018, Perry spent three months in the hospital due to his deteriorating health and underwent surgery to repair a gastrointestinal perforation caused by opioid abuse.
“Doctors told my family I had a 2% chance of living,” Perry said in a interview 2022. “They put me on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing through your heart and lungs. And that’s called a Hail Mary. Nobody survives that.”
This near-death experience represented a change for Perry.
“I have surrendered, but to the winning side, not the losing side,” he wrote in his book. “I am no longer mired in an impossible battle once morest drugs and alcohol.”
“Friends” once more
In 2021, the cast of “Friends” reunited for the first time on screen in 17 years. Perry almost missed the reunion because days before she had undergone urgent dental surgery and was having difficulty speaking.
“I mightn’t not go,” he recalled. Diane Sawyer in 2022. “So what I decided was to go and do the best I might.”
During the reunion special, Perry reflected on the close bond the cast shared.
“The best way to describe it is that when the series ended, if I was at a party or any other social gathering, if one of us ran into another, that was it. We would sit with that person all night,” Perry said. .
“And that was it. You apologized to the people you were with, but they had to understand that you had met someone special to you and that you were going to talk to that person for the rest of the night,” he continued. “And that’s how it worked.”
“Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing”
While promoting her book in 2022, Perry said she had been substance-free for 18 months, a period that included participating in the “Friends” reunion.
“I’ve probably spent $9 million or something trying to stay sober,” he estimated.
“Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing”, escrito por Matthew Perry. (Crédito: Julia Weeks/AP)
Reflecting on his life during a promoting your book Last November, Perry reiterated the value he placed on helping others.
“I would like to be remembered as someone who lived well, loved well, was a seeker,” Perry said. “And the most important thing is that I wanted to help people. That’s what I want.”
“When I die, I don’t want ‘Friends’ to be the first thing mentioned,” he added. “I want that [ayudar a otros adictos] be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m going to live the rest of my life proving it.”
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