FRIENDS Star Matthew Perry Dies at 54, Said God Helped Him Overcome Addiction
By Movieguide® Contributor
FRIENDS star Matthew Perry died on Saturday, October 28, 2023. He was 54.
In the past, the actor opened up about how God helped him overcome his struggle with addiction.
Movieguide® reported, “[Perry] said that he started drinking heavily by the time he was 18, and at one point he was taking up to 55 Vicodin a day. He managed to hide his addiction for years until it got to the point he couldn’t anymore.”
He nearly died from an opioid overdose at the age of 49. “The doctors told my family that I had a 2 percent chance to live,” he shared, per Movieguide®. “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.”
The actor finally found sobriety after asking God for help.
“‘God, please help me,’ I whispered. ‘Show me that you are here. God, please help me,’” he wrote in his memoir. “I started to cry. I mean, I really started to cry – that shoulder-shaking kind of uncontrollable weeping. I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because, for the first time in my life, I felt OK.”
Perry continued, “I felt safe, taken care of. Decades of struggling with God, and wrestling with life, and sadness, all was being washed away, like a river of pain gone into oblivion.”
“I had been in the presence of God. I was certain of it. And this time I had prayed for the right thing: help,” he said.
After that moment, he began helping others suffering from addiction.
Before his death, he said, “I’ve said this for a long time. When I die, I don’t want FRIENDS to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want [the work helping addicts] to be the first thing that’s mentioned, and I’m going to live the rest of my life proving that.”
He even opened his Malibu home up to men wanting to get clean.
Fox News reported on his death: “Law enforcement sources said the actor was found dead in a hot tub at a house in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles on Saturday. The authorities stated he appeared to have died due to drowning.”
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