I stayed up until almost 2:00 a.m. last night to finish reading Matthew Perry's autobiography. It was very compelling reading. But in the interest of full disclosure, I hadn't intended to read his book at all. I've always liked him in the roles he played but I didn't think I wanted to read a book about addiction. Plus, when he did his interviews when the book came out, he looked like he was in need of a bath - in all of them because his hair always looked greasy. On top of that, he talked about making out with Valerie Bertinelli when her husband was ten feet away from them, although I may have read that in articles about the book - pre-release. Anyway, the point is, if he hadn't died, I probably wouldn't have read his book and it's a book worth reading, in my opinion.
I'm not an alcoholic or a drug addict but I do believe it's a disease that is hard to keep in "remission". It's easy for a non-addict to say that you just shouldn't take that first drink but it's not that easy for the addict and Matthew goes into painstaking detail about his battle with booze and drugs. He talks about his abandonment issues and how he wanted to fill the hole he felt in his life and he used booze and drugs to try to fill it. He'd wanted fame because he thought that would do the trick but it didn't. He kept meeting wonderful women but would break up with them before they could break up with him. It was a pretty sad existence.
Lisa Kudrow wrote the forward and she said she hated being asked how he was in interviews because the truth was, she didn't know. Plus, she didn't feel it was her story to tell. She also felt that NOT responding was bad too so she said she typically said something along the lines of "I think he's okay" and left it at that. She said that now we all knew. Because of the spacing in the ebook, the "from him" was on the next page. The "now we all knew" seemed prophetic, given his death.
Matthew also said some things that seemed prophetic, as well. It was eerie reading these things after his death. Chilling really.
He told a story how at one point he was in Switzerland and was being prescribed a certain dose of a drug. He was told his doctor in the US would give him the same dose when he got home. He chartered a plane, paying $175,000 to do so, and came home. His doctor said he'd only give him a small fraction of what he could get in Switzerland, so he paid another $175,000 to go back to Switzerland. That's what addiction can do to you.
One of the stories that bothered me most was one from a couple of years ago. His bowels had already exploded and he'd had a number of surgeries but he was still smoking. He started hearing some wheezing and made a doctor's appointment. He figured he had a bronchial infection but turns out his years of smoking had done a number on his lungs. He was told he needed to stop smoking immediately - that day - or he would die at 60. The doctor told him he could live until his 80s if he stopped. Stopping smoking proved challenging for him (a hypnotist was involved - twice) but he quit (and nothing was said to say he went back to it either). He said that quitting cigarettes was harder than quitting drugs. I've heard that before and think it's probably true (but have no firsthand experience with either). But what bothered me is that he didn't make it until 60 - he was six years away from it when he died.
Knowing how it all ended, it was sad reading but I do think important. He wanted to be more remembered for helping addicts (Hank Azaria credits Matthew with getting him sober) get sober than anything else and I hope he will be. He thought writing this book might help others, I think it will.
I highly recommend it.
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