Matthew Perry is opening up about his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
The beloved Friends star revealed that he spent decades in and out of rehab and was at one point told he only had a 2% chance of survival.
Now sober, the 53-year-old is telling his story for the first time in his new memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. In an interview with People, Perry explained that he had to wait to share his story until he was safely away from the disease.
"I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again," the actor said, adding: "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."
His memoir - which will hit shelves next month - begins by recounting an occasion several years ago when, at the age of 49, Perry almost died after his colon burst from opioid overuse.
"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.
"There were five people put on an ECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived," the star added.
Perry explained that after being taken off the ECMO machine, he still had a long road to recovery, and had to use a colostomy bag for nine months. He also revealed that as a result of his decades of addiction struggles, he has had 14 surgeries on his stomach and been to rehab 15 times.
In his book, the actor recalls how his addiction issues began when he was first cast on Friends at just 24 years old. "I could handle it, kind of. But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble," he told People, adding: "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.'"
Perry's memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is out on November 1, 2022.
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