Addicts Gone too Soon : The Story of Matthew Perry

Matthew Perry was more than Chandler Bing. In this powerful, 15-minute episode, we go beyond the laugh track to explore his real story — from childhood pain to global stardom, through a decades-long battle with addiction, near-death experiences, and hard-won moments of recovery.

Using insights from his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing and credible sources, we dive deep into the man behind the sarcasm. This episode is part tribute, part cautionary tale, and part message of hope for anyone battling their own “Big Terrible Thing.”

You’ll hear:

• ​How Perry’s early life shaped his humor and hunger for fame
• ​The inside story of Friends and why he doesn’t remember three entire seasons
• ​His terrifying health battles, including a 2% chance of survival
• ​What recovery meant to him — and how he wanted to be remembered

🎧 If you’re struggling with addiction, this episode is for you. You are not alone.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
So he writes in his memoir that his first drink was at 14, and
from that moment he felt complete.
But the big pivotal moment, and I think a lot of people with
opiate addiction can relate to this, he had a jet ski accident
in 1997 and he was prescribed Vicodin.
Hi there, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud

(00:22):
Podcast, the show where we get real about mental health and
addiction. I'm so glad you're here.
If you or someone you love is struggling with drugs or
alcohol, please reach out for help.
Send me a message on all social media platforms at Recovering
Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at [e-mail].

(00:44):
You are no longer alone. All right, today on Recovering

(01:05):
Out Loud, I'm going to do something a little bit
different. I wanted to start a People We
Lost to Soon series where I talkabout people in the public eye
and their struggles with addiction.
And if you've ever watched Friends, if you've ever watched
Matthew Perry act, he was a really funny actor, beloved as

(01:28):
Chandler on Friends. And you know, when I was in
rehab with last time in January,I got a chance to read his
memoir, which is incredible. If you haven't read it yet, I
highly recommend it. So a lot of this information is
going to be from his memoir. It's called Friends, Lovers and

(01:49):
the Big Terrible Thing. So I recommend checking it out.
He goes into detail about addiction and his struggles with
addictions he's been to, he wentto multiple rehabs.
Unfortunately, as a lot of us know, he didn't make it out of
addiction. And that's one of the reasons
why I wanted to start these episodes.

(02:09):
So let's dive into it. So we'll start with his early
life. His name, his full name is
actually Matthew Langford Perry.He was born on August 19th of
1969 in Massachusetts, and his parents divorced before his
first birthday. So his mother, Susan or Suzanne,

(02:31):
she was actually Canadian. So I'll shout out to all my
Canadian friends and listeners. She worked in politics for Yeah,
that's right, she worked. She was a press secretary for
Pierre Trudeau at the time, Prime Minister of Canada at the
time, and she worked in. So she lived in Ottawa and

(02:51):
worked in as a press secretary. Like I said, his dad's name was
John Bennett Perry and he was anactor and a model.
He actually talked about it in quite in a lot of detail in his
book. And his parents met on some talk
show or she was in, she's a pageant queen in the Canadian
side of things. So he grew up, Matthew Perry

(03:12):
grew up mostly in in Ottawa. And he was raised mainly by his
mom and his stepfather, who was a journalist, Keith Morrison,
the guy from Dateline. So he talks about being a kid
and having restless energy. He was mischievous.
And he actually admitted to beating up Pierre Trudeau's son,
who we a lot of us might know, the former Prime Minister, most

(03:36):
recently former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
And during the schoolyard days. So that's kind of funny.
He actually kicked his ass. Matthew Perry really liked
tennis. He became one of the top junior
players in Canada, but then he moved to Los Angeles at the age
of 15 to live with his dad. As probably any kid would.
He didn't really pursue tennis. It's funny, he actually goes

(03:58):
into quite a lot of detail in his book about riding on the
plane alone and and how that really affected him down the
road, being alone on an airplaneand being filled with fear as a
child because he did it quite a bit.
So he moved to LA at 15 and thenhe wanted to, he wanted to

(04:20):
become an actor, as most people who moved to LA want to do.
He started with small roles, a show called Charles in Charge,
Growing Pains and Sydney. But the story, so the story of
him actually getting into friends and becoming Chandler
Bing is actually sort of an act of Providence.
It's it's a funny coincidence how it happened.

(04:42):
I remember when I was reading itin rehab, I was actually quite
blown away how it was supposed to go to someone else, the role
and then it went to him. So I'll explain that a little
bit. So originally, Perry was
committed to another pilot of a show called LAX 2194.
Ever heard of it? No, neither did I.
So it was a kind of a weird ideafor a show.

(05:04):
It was about baggage handlers inthe future.
And then the project eventually fell through.
He was free to audition. So he auditioned for the role of
Chandler Bing. And it was actually funny.
One of his one of his good friends, I'm blanking on the
name right now. Originally he got cast for the
role and Chandler was the last role to be cast in the show

(05:27):
Friends. So one of his good buddies who's
also an actor, obviously got cast for the role.
And he had two roles to choose from at the time, this guy.
And he actually called Matthew Perry and said, which one should
I take? And Matthew Perry really wanted
the role of Chandler. And he talks about in his book,
he had a real internal battle where he wanted to tell him not

(05:49):
to take Chandler from friends because he wanted that role.
And he went with his, you know, better judgement and went with
his heart and was a good friend and said, no, you should take
the role of of Chandler from friends.
And then his friend actually decided to take the other role
of a different show. And then so the role was open
for for Matthew Perry. It's sort of funny how that

(06:11):
worked out and would end up essentially changing his entire
life. He became extremely rich and
famous from that role, as we allknow.
So Friends. The show Friends premiered in
1994 and in Chandler's one linerthat a lot of you might know
made him a fan favorite overnight.
I don't watch the show that much, but I believe it's
something like, can I be anymoreuninterested or something like

(06:35):
that? I'm probably butchering that.
But so this is when he started to really battle the drug
addiction and started to come into his life.
So he writes in his memoir that his first drink was at 14.
And from that moment, he felt complete.
But the big pivotal moment, and I think a lot of people with
opiate addiction can relate to this.
He had a jet ski accident in 1997, and he was prescribed

(06:59):
Vicodin, right? So he would start with the
Vicodin for the pain, and then it escalated pretty quickly.
He started taking 55 pills a day, as he talks about.
So by his own count, he went to rehab 15 times.
So if you're out there listeningto this and you've been to rehab
a lot, like there's people like you, you know, and you don't

(07:20):
have to go out the way he went out.
He spent over $9 million trying to get sober, right?
Not just from rehabs, but from therapists and other types of
addiction treatments. So he was hospitalized so many
times that at one point his colon actually burst and he was
put into a coma for two weeks. He talked about it in his book
the the story of, oh, he was in extreme pain and he was trying

(07:42):
to leave the current rehab that he was at.
But they wouldn't let him leave because they deemed it as drug
seeking behavior and, and they thought that he just wanted to
go to the hospital to get opiates.
So the guy at the treatment center actually stood in front
of his car and wouldn't let his assistant who was driving at the
time, he wouldn't let Matthew Perry and his assistant leave.

(08:04):
Matthew Perry was in so much pain from his colon.
He didn't know what at the time that his colon burst.
But he would later find that outthat he actually told his
assistant just drive, run the guy over.
And they got the guy jumped out of the way and they went to the
hospital. So he was put into a coma for
two weeks. He had 14 stomach surgeries and
he lived with a colostomy bag for nine months.

(08:26):
He makes a joke in his book about being full of shit.
He was literally full of shit. Like his colon burst and
exploded. Everybody almost died in that
moment. Also all through this he was
filming Friends and he he actually admits to not remember
him filming 3 entire seasons of the show.
He doesn't remember 3 full seasons.

(08:48):
He actually talks about in his book as well where he says in
the show when you go back and watch when he has a goatee, the
facial hair, he has a goatee. That's when he was on opiates
and heavily addicted to painkillers.
And then when he doesn't you cantell the difference he looks
completely different. He's sober when he doesn't have
the goatee. So is the cast mate start to

(09:09):
notice specifically Jennifer Aniston.
She pulled him aside once and said, we know you're drinking.
And he talks about how that moment stuck with him.
It was the first time he realized that he couldn't hide
it anymore. And other people started to
notice. I think a lot of us can relate
to that where it's like you're you're doing a good job, You're
not hurting anyone else. You're hiding it.
And then someone in your life comes up to you and says, hey,

(09:30):
man, like you need some help, You have a problem.
And this kind of you have the kind of experience where you're
like, oh, man, I got to change because I got to do something
about this. Because now it's not just
affecting me, it's affecting people around me and people I
love. So I find this extremely
powerful and and I resonate a lot with with this, even though
I didn't I wasn't addicted per SE to opiates.

(09:53):
I did have my experience with them, but he talks about quote
the first time I took Vicodin, it felt better than anything I'd
ever experienced. And the problem was that feeling
stayed with me. He actually talked about his
book. He he likens it to your, when
you take opiates, your blood, itfeels like your blood is

(10:15):
replaced with warm honey. That's how he described the
feeling of opiates. I think a lot of us can relate
to that, the sort of warm hug feeling.
So Matthew dated Perry, dated quite a bit of incredible women.
He dated Julia Roberts, Lizzy Kaplan.
But he also he talks a lot abouthis fear of abandonment from his
childhood and how it often sabotaged his relationships.

(10:37):
He talks about how he uses humoras a shield to keep people out
and keep people at a distance. So in 20, in 2022, Perry
released his memoir that I talked about earlier heavily,
highly. I recommend it quite heavily.
That doesn't make any fucking sense.
Just go and read it. It's called Friends, Lovers and

(10:58):
the big terrible thing. So he wrote it entirely himself
and it was his way of telling the truth before it was too
late. Kind of ironic.
Then in October of 2023, he passed away at 54 years old.
So the autopsy later revealed acute ketamine effects as a
factor. He turned his old Malibu mansion

(11:19):
into Perry House, which was the sober living facility for men.
And now he continues his missionthrough the Matthew Perry
Foundation, which is amazing. He talks about in his book, the
story about how he started that facility.
He went in with a sponsor of hisand then so the guy ended up
taking his investment, Matthew Perry's investment, and

(11:41):
disappearing. He talks about how that
negatively affected him. So when he died, he drowned in
his hot tub. He was in his hot tub on
ketamine and he talks about how he was using ketamine from
doctors but then he was this, I can relate to this a lot.
He was getting prescribed ketamine and then he was doctor
shopping and getting more pills and ketamine on the side.

(12:05):
So the investigations revealed that his assistant, 2 doctors
and producers were involved in supplying him ketamine for
depression treatment. Some pleaded guilty, including
they called this woman the Ketamine queen Jasmine Sanga and
his dart. His death sparked legal and
media scrutiny. So he began drinking at 14 and
by 18, he was daily drinking. Like I said, the jet ski

(12:27):
accident spent spun him into theworld of opiates.
It's funny that he says here he attended 6000A A meetings, 14
stomach surgeries and had a colostomy bag and spent around
$9 million trying to get sober. He had a lot of near death
experiences throughout the time.So he talks about an episode in
rehab in Switzerland where Pro for All administered before

(12:51):
surgery stops his heart for 5 minutes, resulting in eight
broken ribs due to CPR. So I think there's a lot to
learn from the story and we definitely lost him to Sue.
But I was really inspired by hisstory and his memoir, as you
know, he wrote it with the intention of helping the still
suffering addict and alcoholic, right?
There's a lot of good stuff in there and a lot of hope, you

(13:16):
know? But ultimately he got to a point
where, in my opinion, he wasn't working some sort of recovery
program and he was looking for that connection, right?
He wasn't, you know, there. He talks a lot about isolation
in his book being a factor. And I can relate to that.
Being isolated is literally the key to addiction, like the the

(13:36):
biggest fuel, the biggest catalyst to relapse an addiction
is being separate from people, from a higher power and trying
to do things on your own. This sort of isolation place
that we get ourselves into. He talks about how he broke off
engagements when he was sober because he worried he'd hurt his
partners if he relapsed. Right, like this constant

(13:57):
liability. And there's a quote in his book
where he says when I die I don'twant to be friends to be the
first thing mentioned. I want helping others to be the
first thing. Love that Matthew Perry made the
world laugh. But the most powerful thing he
left us isn't Chandler being sarcasm but his brutal honesty
and authenticity. I highly recommend checking out

(14:19):
this book. It's a great book for people in
addiction. People struggling with an addict
in their life give some real perspective and the fame side of
things. He also talked about Bruce
Willis being a huge party animal, which is hilarious.
They did a movie together, whichis also, you know, a big part of
his success. And yeah, I mean, I really

(14:41):
wanted to do this because I think it's a really interesting
story and a different perspective on being famous and
struggling with addiction. But it's all the same shit.
You know, I could relate a lot to it, even though he's very
different than I was. I am, I can relate a lot to the
addiction and the feelings that he talks about in his book and,
and what drugs did for him, right?

(15:02):
This sense of ease and comfort that we, we start to do drugs
and then we get this sense of ease and comfort that we need to
find in sobriety, right? And to me today, the ease and
comfort comes from my recovery program.
It comes from doing this podcast, It comes from making
content, doing the coaching, helping others.
And ultimately, I don't want to go back out there, right?

(15:24):
Like I want to stay on this sideof the fence because it's a lot
better. It's hard at times, but it's
worth it. Thanks for listening today.
I'm going to be doing a lot moreof these episodes coming up.
If you have any recommendations,shoot me a message of people you
aren't lost too soon or people struggling with addiction.
I'm thinking maybe Charlie Sheen, even though he's not,
he's still alive. He has a Netflix documentary

(15:46):
coming out, but let me know whatyou think.
Like, follow, subscribe. It really helps the channel.
I appreciate every single one ofyou and let's do this thing one
day at a time. Thanks for listening.
Please help us grow the channel and like, share, and subscribe
for more content. The discussions and stories
shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational

(16:07):
purposes only. This content is not a substitute
for professional medical advice,addiction treatment, or therapy.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction,
please consult A licensed physician, addiction specialist,
or mental health professional. You are no longer alone.