Matthew Perry is opening up about the time in 2018 when he almost died as a result of his opioid addiction. “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,” Perry told People. “There were five people put on an ECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived.” Perry says that his family was told he had a 2 percent chance of surviving after his colon burst from opioid overuse. Besides being put on an ECMO machine, Perry had to use a colostomy bag for nine months. “My therapist said, ‘The next time you think about taking OxyContin, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life,’” Perry said. “And a little window opened and I crawled through it, and I no longer want OxyContin anymore.”
Perry is speaking about his addiction issues ahead of the publication of his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. In the book, Perry discusses being on a hit sitcom while experiencing alcohol and opioid dependencies. Perry did Friends at different levels of sobriety and says that his fellow castmates supported him through the experience: “Season nine 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.”