Matthew Perry spent $9,000,000 to try and treat his addiction
Jake Massey
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Matthew Perry has estimated that he's spent $9 million trying to overcome his drink and drug addictions.
The Friends star has opened up about the substance and alcohol problems that have dogged his career in his new memoir, Friends, Lovers And The Big Terrible Thing.
Speaking to The New York Times, the 53-year-old said he was 18 months sober - but he has spent a hell of a lot of money trying to get to this point.
"I've probably spent $9 million (£7.9 million) or something trying to get sober," he said.
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Speaking to People, Perry revealed that his alcoholism was just taking root when he landed the role that would change his life on the astronomically popular sitcom.
Over the years on the show, his addiction escalated - and in 2018, it nearly cost him his life.
While Perry publicly said that he had been hospitalised for a gastrointestinal perforation, the truth was that his colon had burst from using opioids.
He was hospitalised for a total of five months, two weeks of which he was in a coma.
Perry then had to wear a colostomy bag for nine months.
He said: "The doctors told my family that I had a two percent chance to live.
"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 said five people were put on Ecmo machines that night and only he survived, making him question why he was the one.
He also added that his Friends co-stars had all been by his side during his toughest times.
Perry said: "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."
He added: "That's kind of what the cast did for me."
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