Olivia: The most dangerous prayer in the world might be: "God, please make me famous." For Matthew Perry, that prayer was answered. And it almost cost him his life. Multiple times. Jackson: Wow. That's a heavy way to start. But it feels right for this book. It’s not your typical celebrity memoir, is it? It’s something much darker, much more raw. Olivia: Exactly. That prayer is at the heart of Matthew Perry's memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. Jackson: A book that has been praised and seen as controversial for its brutal honesty. Perry doesn't hold back. Olivia: Not at all. And what's fascinating is that he wrote it himself, balancing that famous Chandler Bing wit with some of the darkest experiences you can imagine. He said he had to wait until he was safely sober to write it, so he wouldn't risk his life by delving back into these memories. Jackson: That makes sense. You can feel the danger on every page. So the fame he prayed for... it wasn't the answer?

Olivia: It was the exact opposite. He frames the whole first part of his life as this desperate quest for fame, believing it would fix this fundamental feeling of being "not enough." A feeling he traces all the way back to being a five-year-old, flying alone between his divorced parents. He was an "unaccompanied minor," and he says that feeling never really left him. Jackson: I remember reading about that. The sign around his neck. It’s a heartbreaking image. He thought fame would finally make him feel... accompanied? Olivia: Perfectly put. And then, he gets it. All of it. He lands the role of Chandler Bing in Friends, a script he said felt like it was written for him. The show is an instant, meteoric success. He's making a million dollars an episode. He's one of the most recognizable people on the planet. Jackson: And he starts dating Julia Roberts. Let's not forget that part. He's literally living the dream. Olivia: He is! And the story of how they got together is wild. She would only agree to guest star on the post-Super Bowl episode of Friends if she could be in his storyline. So the producers basically told him, "Go woo Julia Roberts." He sent her flowers, and she responded by challenging him to explain quantum physics to her. Jackson: No way. Seriously? Olivia: Seriously. He got the writers' room to help him write a paper on wave-particle duality, and they ended up faxing each other every day for three months. It was this incredibly romantic, intellectual courtship. Jackson: That’s amazing. So he has the fame, the money, the girl. He has everything. And yet... it's not working. What was the actual problem? What was the hole he was trying to fill? Olivia: That’s the million-dollar question, isn't it? He's in his dream house, looking out at the lights of Los Angeles, with Julia Roberts next to him, and all his mind can tell him is, "You should have a drink." The external success couldn't touch the internal void. He has this incredible quote: "You have to get famous to know that it’s not the answer. And nobody who is not famous will ever truly believe that." Jackson: Huh. That’s a powerful and slightly infuriating thought. Because from the outside, you're just screaming, "What more could you possibly want?!" Olivia: And that's the great deception he talks about. The director of Friends, Jimmy Burrows, flew the whole cast to Las Vegas right before the first episode aired. He gave them each a hundred bucks and said, "Go have fun. This is the last time you'll ever be anonymous." For Perry, that wasn't a celebration; it was a premonition. The dream was about to become a cage. Jackson: A cage he built himself, by praying for it. That's chilling.

Olivia: And that hole he was trying to fill with fame, he eventually tried to fill with something else. This is where we get into what he calls 'The Big Terrible Thing.' Jackson: The addiction. And he is unflinching in the details. Some of the stories in this book are genuinely hard to read. Olivia: They are. He wants the reader to understand the mechanics of it, the sheer, grinding reality. It's not glamorous. It's a full-time job. At one point, he's going to open houses on Sundays, not to buy a house, but to steal pills from strangers' medicine cabinets. Jackson: That's a level of desperation most of us can't even fathom. But it gets so much worse. Let's talk about the physical toll. The exploding colon. Olivia: Right. This is the absolute rock bottom. He's 49, and his colon bursts from opiate abuse. He's given a two percent chance to live. He's in a coma for two weeks, and when he wakes up, he has a colostomy bag. He spends months in the hospital. Jackson: And the detail that got me was that he vomited into his ventilator, which caused pneumonia and septic shock. It’s just one catastrophe after another. Olivia: And that's the nature of the disease. It's chaos. He describes it perfectly in one of the interludes: "Addiction is like the Joker. It just wants to see the whole world burn." It's not logical. It's pure destruction. Jackson: And even that near-death experience isn't the end of it. The story from the Swiss rehab is somehow even more absurd and terrifying. Olivia: It's completely surreal. He's in this ultra-luxurious rehab on Lake Geneva, paying a fortune. He's so high on hydrocodone—he says 1,800 milligrams a day—that he proposes to his girlfriend, mostly out of a desperate fear she'll leave him. Jackson: Wait, 1,800 milligrams? How does a person even function? A normal prescription is tiny in comparison. Olivia: That's the thing about tolerance. His body had adapted to these insane levels. But then it gets crazier. He goes in for a minor surgery, and they give him propofol. It reacts with all the hydrocodone in his system, and his heart stops. For five minutes. Jackson: His heart stopped. And a staff member had to perform CPR? Olivia: For five minutes straight. The guy saved his life but broke eight of his ribs in the process. And when Perry wakes up, in agony from the broken ribs, the head doctor tells him he can't have any more of his ketamine treatments. Perry, in a rage, just starts knocking over medical supplies. Jackson: Wow. So he almost dies, and the immediate result is a conflict over more drugs. It really shows you the warped logic of addiction. His mind isn't on survival; it's on the next fix. Olivia: Exactly. He quotes Robert Downey Jr., who said addiction is like having a gun in your mouth with your finger on the trigger, and you like the taste of the metal. That's the insanity he's trying to convey. It's not a choice in the way we think of it. It's a compulsion.

Jackson: After all that, after nearly dying multiple times, how does someone even begin to come back? Is sobriety even possible at that point? Olivia: That’s the final, and maybe most important, part of the book. His recovery is not a straight line. It's messy and full of setbacks. But there's a profound turning point he describes in an interlude called "All Heaven Breaking Loose." Jackson: The spiritual experience. Olivia: Yes. He's detoxing at home, his father is there to help him, and in a moment of pure desperation, he gets on his knees and prays. He says, "God, please help me. Show me that you are here." And as he says it, his room is filled with this warm, golden light, and he feels this overwhelming sense of love and acceptance. He says he wasn't high. It was real. And that feeling, that moment, kept him sober for two years. Jackson: That's an incredible moment of grace. But the book makes it clear that even a miracle isn't a permanent fix. Olivia: No, because life happens. He tries to find a new purpose. He gets heavily involved in advocating for drug courts. He partners with his sponsor, a man named Earl H., to open a sober living facility called Perry House. He pours his heart and half a million dollars into it. Jackson: And then his sponsor, his best friend and mentor, basically ghosts him and never pays him back. Olivia: It's a devastating betrayal. And it sends him spiraling again. He loses his money, his purpose, his closest ally, and his trust in people. It’s a brutal lesson that even doing good in the world doesn't make you immune to pain or relapse. Jackson: So even when he tries to do good, to help others, it backfires? That's just heartbreaking. What does he do with that pain? Olivia: He turns to his art. He writes a play, The End of Longing. It's a dark comedy about four broken people in their forties, and it's clearly autobiographical. It's his attempt to process all that pain and betrayal. And it’s a way for him to find an identity beyond "Chandler" and beyond "addict." He becomes a playwright. Jackson: So the search for meaning is an ongoing, creative process. It's not about finding one single answer. Olivia: Exactly. And that's what makes the book so resonant, I think. It's been praised for that honesty, even if some critics found the cycles of relapse and recovery repetitive. But that is the reality of the disease. It's not a neat three-act story.

Jackson: So what's the final takeaway? Is it a story of hope or a cautionary tale? Olivia: It's both. The book's power is that it refuses a neat ending. Perry's message is that addiction is a patient disease, always waiting. He says sobriety isn't about strength; for him, it was about the drugs simply not working anymore. But he also says his scars are proof a battle was fought and won. The hope isn't in being 'cured,' but in the daily act of choosing to live. Jackson: And, crucially, to help someone else. That seems to be the thing he lands on. Olivia: It's everything. He says that when he helps another alcoholic, that's when he feels a connection to God. It's the only thing that washes the slate clean. And it reframes his entire legacy. Jackson: There's that powerful quote at the end, isn't there? Olivia: Yes. He says, "When I die, I don't want 'Friends' to be the first thing that's mentioned—I want helping people to be the first thing that's mentioned." Jackson: It really makes you think about what legacy means. It's not about what you achieved for yourself, but what you did for others. Olivia: It really does. And for a man who spent his life feeling like an "unaccompanied minor," he seems to have found his purpose in making sure no one else has to feel so alone. We'd love to hear what resonated most with you from his story. Find us on our socials and share your thoughts. Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.