Matthew Perry Humanized Addiction & Broke My Heart
How my own struggle cultivated a bleeding heart.
*photo credit
When Matthew Perry passed away a few weeks ago, it hit me harder than I expected. What happened? Had he relapsed — succumbed again to the addiction that he had barely survived already? We don’t know and maybe we never will.
I found myself seeking out an episode of “Friends” when I hadn’t in years. I finally watched the 2021 reunion show, searching for some kind of sign in Perry’s words or gaze. Honestly, I recognized a sadness in him during the reunion.
If he did relapse, I have the deepest of empathy and compassion for him — something that’s hard for those personally unaffected by addiction to have.
When I see the languishing souls, crooked and catatonic on the streets of San Francisco, my heart breaks open. Those addicted to drugs or alcohol are often treated as sub-human. Even though I think San Francisco is a wreck that’s perpetuating a serious problem, the people living on the streets aren’t to blame for their addictions or government inaction.
During the pandemic, when liquor stores were kept open, many scoffed at how ridiculous it was. But didn’t they know? Quitting alcohol cold turkey can kill you. And honestly, you don’t know who in your life could have been that person.
In The Weight of Air, David Poses documents his life addicted to drugs for 20 years, when everyone in his family thought he was clean. People are good at hiding.
At the heart of addiction, you’ll find a story — usually a sad one, a hard one. Poverty, sexual and domestic abuse, neglect and mental illness. As we say in my recovery group, “life is life-y.” The statistics are working hard against you with those factors in play. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) — the more you have, the more likely you will deal with addiction.
On the YouTube channel, Soft White Underbelly, you can come to know the stories behind so many survivors:
That’s not my personal experience, but when I was deep in my struggle with alcohol, I wondered why — why is this happening to me when other people can drink just fine?
Why can’t I just have fun with it and not immediately brain lurch to the mini-bottles of Chardonnay — easy to drink quickly and hide — in the grocery store aisle?
While writing my first book, Leaving Cloud 9: The True Story of a Life Resurrected From the Ashes of Poverty, Trauma and Mental Illness, I dove headfirst into addiction research. My mother-in-law, who I met only once, suffered immensely from mental illness, alcoholism and drug addiction.
I wanted to understand what happened to her — and to so many others who end up chained to a substance, imprisoned by a white powder or dead from a drug they didn’t know was tainted.
I read lots of books about the addiction crisis:
Dopesick by Beth Macy
Chasing the Scream by Yohan Hari
Dreamland by Sam Quinones
American Fix by Ryan Hampton
I dove into the cultural analysis in reads like:
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
Coming Apart by Charles Murray
Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
Alienated America by Tim Carney
I attended a conference about the opioid crisis and caught a glimpse of it in real life watching my cousin, who is like a brother, deal with drug issues and face prison time.
I tracked the number of dead pouring in across the country, statistics like mass of tiny bugs — too many to count, too difficult to fathom. Their faces, their names, their children like slides flashing quickly across a proverbial screen.
In the midst of my studies and writing, my struggle with alcohol continued, as I made last minute, mad-dashes into the store for nips of Stoli— a heightened expectancy of relief propelling me onward.
When you’re en route to the drug, the substance, the THING…the high is triggered. A sense of glorious anticipation drenches your psyche. Everything’s going to be okay NOW.
I felt it when I was drinking. I felt it when I was binging. I felt it when I had access to Hydrocodone (something I knew was *so* dangerous and had only after giving birth and during back pain issues.) I refused to seek out more once I had quickly emptied my bottles. But I understood how people lost themselves.
And the still, the next day when the headache pounds, the exhaustion peaks, the depression surfaces again, you wonder why you do what you do. Until the feelings rise again. Then you remember, and fail miserably into a pill, a bottle, a needle — barely a choice at all.
It occurred to me one day that I could find reason in my personal struggle. Or at least, I could make good sense of WHY I was going through this: I needed to understand addiction. I was writing about it, researching it, talking about it publicly. And I understood what it felt like too — even if nobody knew I did.
God reminded me that I could do better justice to the subject matter precisely because of the knowing compassion that grows from genuine understanding.
Years ago, when I volunteered with Back on My Feet, I spent weekday mornings jogging along the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool with men who had lost everything to drugs. They’d been homeless, lost kids, jobs, homes — and yet we shared a common humanity.
Our lives looked so different, but I felt deeply for their struggle. And I had such incredible respect for how they were striving to overcome.
Because of what I had learned and experienced, I got angry when I learned certain things:
…about in-patient rehab centers that are monstrously expensive, not covered by insurance and often scammy
…about Purdue Pharma and their deadly, disgusting campaign based on lies
…about doctors who played along and became pill mills, delivering prescriptions of death
I also learned that the D.A.R.E. program so popular when I was a kid hadn’t really prevented any addictions at all. Everything we’d ever done was wrong.
Furthermore, I learned that alcohol is far worse for the body than drugs, but drugs kill faster because because they aren’t regulated and people don’t know what they hell they’re taking half the time.
Poses writes in his book, “Alcohol isn’t legal because it’s safer. Alcohol is safe because it’s legal.”
I’m *not* advocated that heroin or other drugs be made legal. But I did think it was a point worth considering.
I don’t know the answer. I can’t advocate for legalized drugs or for outlawing alcohol. More people died from alcohol during prohibition than any other time…for a reason.
Which is why the answer worth pursuing, for me, wasn’t from the government, or the drug companies, at all. First, a reminder of the devastation of the drug crisis…
It’s not in the news as much, but the opioid crisis isn’t any better. From May 2022 to May 2023, 106,000 people were reported dead.
Prescriptions for Oxycontin may not fill the streets any more, but plenty of drugs are available thanks to illegal drug trafficking. You can get them if you want them. And you will always be able to.
So we have to take a different tack. Drug overdoes deaths are generally labeled “deaths of despair.” There’s a remedy for that — it’s called hope.
Where do we find hope? In beauty, truth and in God.
In AA, they talk about a higher power. In my recovery group, people who don’t believe in God will even reference “the universe.”
But we know what it is: it’s God — the Higher Power, the Universe, the Truth, the hope that meets us at rock bottom and offers to carry us forward.
It’s why women who are active in faith communities are five times less likely to commit suicide.
It’s why addictions are less prevelant for those who attend church on a regular basis.
It’s why only those who stayed active in their faith during COVID reported better mental health outcomes post-2020.
This isn’t just about church, but rather, the supernatural way God works in our lives through others. It’s about the hope that thrives when we’re well-loved. It’s about the life support our souls receive through injections of holy engagement. We.Were.Made.For.This.
This whole idea is what inspired my second book, Reason to Return, if you’re interested in a deeper dive on the numbers and realities.
Church can’t fix everything. A relationship with God won’t immediately end one’s addiction. A small group may not make one’s depression disappear. Faith doesn’t eliminate mental illness or conditions of genetic disposition to addiction. And a good childhood or church family won’t always protect one from it, either.
But these things do matter, and we’ve seen in statistic after statistic, in one real life story after another. We’ll never completely end addiction, but we can look at what works, what helps, what kind prevention works. I would argue it’s the inner changes, the deeper reasons, that are most powerful.
Can public policy incentivize faith? Not really. But the rest of us can be informed and we can advocate and we can humanize the face of addiction to lessen shame and invite recovery.
I don’t know where Matthew Perry stood religiously. But I do know that in populations where addictions breed, church attendance and faith engagement is low. I know that this country has moved further from faith (though there are bright pockets of hope in several areas!). And I know that faith is not often recommended by professionals as a pathway for those struggling with addiction and depression (for example, it’s not mentioned on suicide prevention websites).
I know what it feels like to live in slavery to a substance.
I’ve seen firsthand how addiction ruins lives.
I’ve been witness to the trans-generational trauma it purports on it’s children.
If you haven’t read any addiction memoirs, start today. If you haven’t met someone who live sin this reality, get acquainted.
Understand that nobody wants to live this way. Nobody would choose this if they could start over. And we have to hold out hope for them when they can’t do it for themselves.
*If you’re struggling with alcohol or drugs in silence, you’re not alone. Click here for a list of resources I created.
If you haven’t yet purchased copies of my books, this writer greatly appreciates each and every one!
"Can public policy incentivize faith?"
First let me say that your post is quite inspiring, well thought out, and informative. Thank you for your openness on such a touchy subject. Few people are willing to reveal their struggle with addiction on a public format. I read all of your posts on IWN and look forward to more although I have been holding comments there because my presence seems to be upsetting some due to my gender.
I can mostly agree to the above question but, on the other side of the coin, I do believe that public policy can disincentivize faith and actually be destructive to it. I am referring to the false notion of the "separation of church and state". That has led to the teaching of and acceptance of many negative materialist philosophies that work to eliminate the true triune spiritual nature of the human condition: body, mind, and spirit. What do you think?
Beautiful. Love the read. Thanks.