“I made a rule that I would never drink or take anything at work.
Yet he was desperate to make it in Hollywood.
“God, you’ve got the option to do whatever you want to me.
The cast of ‘Friends’.Reisig & Taylor/NBCU
Just kindly, make me famous,” Perry recalled pleading in “a dumb prayer.”
“That was a dark day for me.
When it did not fix what was broken,” he recalled.
Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry.Ron Davis/Getty Images
But the 53-year-old insisted he was determined to keep his struggles from the cast and crew.
“I made a rule that I would never drink or take anything at work.
But I would show up blindly hung over,” he recounted.
I knew I would never forgive myself if I messed this up.”
“I thought I was hiding it so well,” he shared.
“But I wasn’t in a position to stop.”
But Perry’s battle was only just beginning.
A jet ski accident on theset ofFools Rush Inled him to develop an addiction to painkillers.
“At the time, I should have been the toast of the town,” he said.
“I was in a dark room meeting with nothing but drug dealers and completely alone for months.”
Eventually, he was taking as many as 55 Vicodin pills a day.
Perry estimated that he has been through detox 65 times and went to rehab at least 15 times.
It was a 2018 perforation of the bowel that led to one of his scariest moments.
Eventually, hiscolon exploded and he was put on life support.
“Why was I spared when these four people passed away?
There has to be a reason that I’m here,” he marveled.
That reason, he has come to realize, is helping others battling similar demons.
“I say, ‘Come over.
Let’s talk,'” Perry said.
I have the answer because of stumbling so much.
I could help them."
