Matthew Perry said having to use a colostomy bag — an external bag for feces to be stored — for a year helped him kick his drug addiction.
The “Friends” alum revealed that his “gastrointestinal perforation” in 2019 was actually his colon bursting from opioid abuse, and the damage was so severe he ended up in a coma for two weeks.
“I woke up and realized I had a colostomy bag,” he recalled to People magazine. “They said, ‘It’s all too messy down there. We can’t do surgery. But in about a year you can reverse that.’
“It was pretty hellish having one because they break all the time.”
The horrible experience prompted Perry, 53, to get sober from drugs with help from his therapist.
“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.”
The “Whole Nine Yards” star, who will discuss his troubles further in his forthcoming memoir, “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing,” also was able to win his battle against alcoholism after an experience in which he believes he sensed God in his kitchen.
“It was this bright yellow object that became all-encompassing. I couldn’t see the kitchen anymore. It was just this light, and I felt loved and understood, and in the company of God or whatever,” he told the publication.
“My dad was right next to me and we were holding hands and I was praying when it started, which is something I rarely did. It was like God showed me what’s possible. And then said, ‘Okay. Now you go learn this.’”
Perry previously admitted that doctors told him he had a 2 percent chance to live after his colon burst.
“That’s the time I really came close to my life ending. I was put on an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs,” he shared. “Every doctor says it’s a Hail Mary. No one survives that. So the big question is why? Why was I the one that survived? There has to be some kind of reason.”
