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(Trigger warning: Descriptions of drug addiction.)
"I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life but the best thing about me, bar none, is that if an alcoholic or a drug addict comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me?’ I will always say ‘Yes, I know how to do that. I will do that for you, even if I can’t always do it for myself," said Matthew Perry, during an interview with Canadian broadcaster Tom Power in 2022, adding, "So I do that, whenever I can. In groups, or one on one.”
The same year, he told Good Morning America, “What's interesting about it is I've stood on a stage helping 100,000 people at the same time, but I get the same juice, I get the same thing, from helping one person."
By the time Perry was 34, in his own words, he “was really entrenched in a lot of trouble."
Perry died on 28 October at the age of 54. He wanted to be remembered not just as his iconic character, or as a person who struggled with addiction – but for the work he did to help others who underwent similar battles.
But the actor checked into rehab before season 4 of the sitcom aired. Since then, he went on to say that he has spent about $7 million on his sobriety journey, he writes in his memoir ‘Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing’.
Conversations around substance use and sobriety were rare in the 1990s, and they continue to be taboo topics.
Despite this, Perry never shied away from sharing his journey with the world. In Alcoholics Anonymous, he is known to sponsor three members and chose to not remain anonymous about his sponsorship.
In his words to the Times Sunday, "It suggests that there’s a stigma and that we have to hide. This is not a popular opinion, by the way.” Arguably, considering the stigma around it, the condition of anonymity is perhaps helpful to many.
Speaking about his addiction, Perry 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."
He shared that his co-stars on Friends were “understanding and patient” with him.
Among his co-stars on the show, namely Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Jennifer Aniston, Matt LeBlanc, and David Schwimmer, Kudrow even went on to write the foreword for his memoir. She began the foreword with the phrase, “How’s Matthew Perry doing?”
"Over the many years since I was first asked, it's been, at different times, the most asked question for me," she wrote.
“I’ve been in a mental institution, gone to therapy twice a week for thirty years, been to death’s door,” Perry wrote in his memoir.
He even revealed that he was living in a rehab facility while filming Chandler and Monica’s (Cox) wedding scene, one of the most iconic scenes on the show featuring probably its most loved couple.
Though he recalled feeling “nothing” when the show ended, a feeling he attributed to the detox drug he was taking at the time, he also remembered that Friends was a ‘safe place, a touchstone of calm.’
Admittedly, much of the memoir speaks of women in a less than favourable manner, something many have rightfully called out. But the actor’s decision to place his recovery journey as the focus has been appreciated by many.
While a memoir must never be used as a “how-to” when it comes to addiction recovery, his revelations added to a much-required conversation.
Perry’s skill as an actor was evident even in his roles in The West Wing and The Ron Clark Story; it’s no surprise that the actor had as much a grip on drama as he did on comedy.
Afterall, while Bing might be the show’s comic relief, he is also the one fans were often rooting for the most (I sure was). He was Chandler Bing, the one with the dead-end job who never managed to leave the shadow of his uber-attractive roommate when it came to romance, and who used humour as a defence mechanism.
A character that would’ve just been in it for a few laughs was immortalised by Perry, an energy similar to the one he takes into Mr. Sunshine.
Considering Friends aired at a time when television was on its own meteoric rise as a medium, it is no surprise that Perry, became such an iconic character. But hopefully, like the actor wished, he is also leaving behind a legacy of resilience and above all, of tackling the stigma around substance use and addiction.
Like Perry told People in 2022:
The same year, he told ABC News: “Secrets kill you. Secrets kill people like me.”
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