Matthew Perry: ‘My drug and alcohol addiction was so public’

Network Writers News Corp Australia Network

The Odd Couple star said he was drinking a litre of vodka a day and swallowing up to 30 tablets at his lowest point.

“You can’t have a drug problem for 30 years and then expect to have it be solved in 28 days,” he said in the video obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “I’m a pretty private person, but I was on a TV show that 30 million people were watching. So people knew. It was so public what was happening to me.”

This article contains features which are only available in the web version Take me there

The Friends star said if it hadn’t have been for treatment centres like the Phoenix House on Venice Beach he believes he would be dead.

Perry has said in the past that he life needed to be saved more than a dozen times.

“Treatment centres are important because they sort of separate the addict from their environment where they were using,” he said.

In 1997, Perry completed a 28-day program for a Vicodin addiction. His weight fluctuated drastically over the next few years and once dropped down to 66 kilograms.

He was filming Serving Sara with Elizabeth Hurley in 2001 when he was hospitalised for severe stomach pains. He checked himself into rehab to treat an addiction to opioids (specifically vicodin and methadone), amphetamines and alcohol.

Perry played Chandler Bing on Friends for 10 seasons from 1994-2004. He has appeared on Courteney Cox’s show Cougar Town and Lisa Kudrow’s show Web Therapy, however he wasn’t invited to Jennifer Aniston’s recent wedding to Justin Theroux.

Perry dated Masters of Sex star Lizzy Caplan from 2006 until 2012.