Friends' Matthew Perry 'nearly died and spent weeks in coma' in addiction battle

dailystar.co.uk:

Friends star, 53, rose to fame as Chandler Bing on the hit CBS sitcom which aired from 1994 to 2004.Ahead of the release of his new memoir – Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing – Matthew has for the first time publicly discussed his near-death experience four years ago.READ MORE: Inside Matthew Perry's painkiller and alcohol abuse as actor celebrates 53rd birthdayThe actor was hospitalised at the age of 49 with a gastrointestinal perforation, after his opioid overuse caused his colon to burst.Matthew was put into a coma for two weeks and hooked up to a life-supporting ECMO machine by doctors, who gave the star a 2% chance of survival.Having miraculously pulled through, Matthew later spent five months in hospital and was forced to use a colostomy bag for nine months.The actor has since had a total of 14 surgeries on his stomach and has been left with a number of scars.He told People: "The doctors told my family that I had a 2% 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."Alongside his secret health scare, Matthew's bombshell memoir will also see the star confess that at one stage of his Friends career, he was taking 55 Vicodin a day and weighed just 128 pounds.The star, who is now sober, will also open up about his 15 rehab stays.Matthew later added: "I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again."I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down and the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.'In spite of his struggles, Matthew has said his Friends.