{"id":101948,"date":"2022-10-19T18:18:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T18:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/matthew-perry-reveals-that-opioid-abuse-left-him-near-death-report-deadline\/"},"modified":"2022-10-19T18:18:00","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T18:18:00","slug":"matthew-perry-reveals-that-opioid-abuse-left-him-near-death-report-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/matthew-perry-reveals-that-opioid-abuse-left-him-near-death-report-deadline\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Perry Reveals That Opioid Abuse Left Him Near Death \u2013 Report \u2013 Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tMatthew Perry is opening up about the health crisis that almost claimed his life several years ago, writing in his upcoming memoir that a burst colon from longterm opioid addiction prompted doctors to inform his family that the actor had a 2% chance of survival.<\/p>\n

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\tIn a new interview with People magazine, the friends<\/em> star, now 53, reveals that when he was 49 he was hospitalized for five months and spent two weeks in a coma. He used a colostomy bag for nine months, he says.<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cThe doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live,\u201d he tells People. \u201cI 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 Hall Mary. No one survives that.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\tPerry details his addictions to alcohol and opioids in his new autobiography Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing<\/em>, to be released Nov. 1. \u201cI wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again,\u201d he tells the magazine in an exclusive cover story. \u201cI had to wait until I was pretty safely sober \u2014 and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction \u2014 to write it all down. And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\tThe actor had previously discussed his battles with substance abuse, but the severity of his health crisis at 49 had been kept under wraps. He also goes into detail about his addictions during the run of friends<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\tCast on the sitcom at age 24, Perry was increasingly turning to alcohol, he says. \u201cI could handle it, kind of,\u201d the actor says. \u201cBut by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble. 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.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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\tPerry says at one point during his addiction to prescription painkillers, he was taking 55 Vicodin a day and his weight had dropped to 128 pounds. \u201cI didn’t know how to stop,\u201d he says. \u201cIf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\tPerry says his friends<\/em> co-stars \u201cwere understanding, and they were patient. It’s like penguins. Penguins, in nature, when one is sick, or when one is very injured, the other penguins surround it and prop it up. They walk around it until that penguin can walk on its own. That’s kind of what the cast did for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\tThe actor says he has been to rehab 15 times over the years, and is \u201cpretty healthy now.\u201d He’s had 14 surgeries on his stomach, and the scars are \u201ca lot of reminders to stay sober. All I have to do is look down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\u201cMy therapist said, ‘The next time you think about taking Oxycontin, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life,’\u201d Perry says. \u201cAnd a little window opened and I crawled through it and I no longer want Oxycontin anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n