Could I BE Any More Devastated?

A Tragic Loss...

My mother cried the day Elvis died. She loved him as he represented a special time and place in her life. One that meant something to those of her generation.

Last night I cried.

Actor, writer, and sobriety advocate Matthew Perry has passed away at the age of 54. We don’t yet know the cause of his death, and when they write that what’s left unsaid is that they don’t yet know if he overdosed on drugs or alcohol (he was found in a jacuzzi, where he drowned) but no drugs were found on the scene.

It’s devastating. He’s best known for his defining role of Chandler in the sitcom FRIENDS, yes, but he was so much more than that for many others.

Perry was very much the voice of a specific generation in that show. It was apparent that the character and he shared much in common, not an accident, since Perry had a hand and voice in the creation of that character, and Chandler’s iconic wit and humor came from Perry well before the show was created. Matthew Perry was a genius generational talent, more than he likely ever thought he’d be.

He was also a terrible alcoholic and addict. He later became a sobriety advocate.

This is documented in his brutally honest memoir FRIENDS, LOVERS, AND THE BIG TERRIBLE THING, which I highly recommend.

He writes how he had everything in the world: Number one show, number one movie in the nation, millions of dollars, fame, and fortune, yet he was utterly miserable. Held enthralled by an awful disease called addiction. He would quit and fall off the wagon, again and again, and struggle to survive the thirst that haunted him.

I don’t know if he died as a result of falling off the wagon again. I sincerely hope not, but it’s clear that the toll of years of alcohol and drug abuse is the cause, regardless of the findings, and I hope his book and advocacy live on as he wished.

I loved his book but could not help but feel, in his words, a sense of fatalism, that he was trying his very best, but he knew someday he’d lose this battle. Even if he never drank again, the disease was going to kill him eventually.

I quit drinking in 2018 after a humiliating public embarrassment while blackout drunk beyond words. There’s nothing quite like waking up in the middle of the street late at night, looking up at two cops who asked me what I was doing there. And replying to them, gosh, that’s a great question. I’d been on an obnoxious public bender and embarrassed myself terribly. Luckily, no one got hurt, but the shame still lingers with me to this day. And I stopped drinking after that. Haven’t drunk since and have been sober for five years thus far.

In 2018, I was shocked to discover I was an alcoholic. Today, I am shocked that I was at all shocked. After all, my father was an alcoholic, and so was his father. My grandfather, whoa boy, started every day with vodka and orange juice.

The first year of sobriety was the most difficult. In 2019, I went back to Iowa for two or three months while my mother was in hospice care. Every time I went into the gas station, there was a wall of alcohol, not just beer, but vodka, whiskey, scotch, gin, tequila, rum, and other spirits. They called me. I tuned them out, but it was hard, man. Really hard. The fact that my mother hated alcohol helped me resist. I wasn’t going to stand by her as she passed, reeking of booze. I could not do that to her. So I didn’t.

And those months gave me time to think. About how growing up, so much of the culture I was involved in revolved around alcohol. In high school, all anyone talked about was drinking booze. It was the grownup thing to do.

My father never drove his car without a can of Bud in his lap. In fact, I couldn’t even think about adulting at all without there being some alcohol involved. I didn’t even like the taste, in the beginning, but it was a rite of passage. To be an adult, one drank. It was what we were taught, growing up.

That’s a dangerous game, however. For some of us, when we drink, we die a little bit, inside. And our bodies demand that we keep dying, bottle by bottle, shot by shot, drop by drop, until the physical death is complete.

If you’ve ever heard Matthew Perry speak of alcoholism and addiction, you knew he knew this. He argued against those who called it a personal weakness and chided those who put it down to a lack of willpower. It wasn’t. You don’t get to where Perry was in the world without willpower. But the disease is too strong for some of us.

There’s a “wellness guru” out there who chalks up addiction as moving toward pleasure and away from pain, a statement which, in addition to being non-factual and a thought-terminating cliche, is insulting to those suffering from this disease.

Because that’s what it is, a disease. One that kills.

Perry had it. From the get-go.

Like I do, like my father and his father did and millions of others.

Matthew Perry will be heralded for his work as an actor and entertainer, and he’ll deserve every accolade he gets and then some. But what we should really celebrate is his brutal honesty about his struggle with addiction. That’s hard to do.

Very hard. Being that truly honest about one’s disease, the shame, the negging (I watched someone do this to Perry in real-time in an interview), and the pain. It’s about the most challenging thing a person can do.

And to honor Perry’s honesty, I’ll follow up with my own.

Hi, my name is Joshua, and I am an alcoholic. I’ve been sober for five years.

I plan to stay sober as long as I am here.