He Was Terrified.
I have to interrupt this drunkalogue to talk about the addict who died yesterday.
Probably more than one addict died yesterday, actually, but most of us know the name Matthew Perry. Beloved Friends star and world-famous actor, he also wrote a book called Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing. Even the title was funny.
The content was funny, too, but only because Matthew Perry was always able to be funny about anything – even his own demise and first death.
The book details his struggles with addiction from first use to literal death, when he was brought back to life and declared that he would never use again.
When I read Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, one thing stood out to me. It was a story of a lonely child who traveled from one parent, who lived in Canada, to another parent, who lived in America, as an unaccompanied minor. His parents put him on an international flight alone. He was only five years old, and neither parent bothered to go with him on his first flight.
He was terrified and alone and he never recovered from the trauma.
He referred to himself as an unaccompanied minor well into adulthood. The loneliness that he felt on that first trip – and several subsequent trips thereafter – taught him that he wasn’t wanted. He carried the scars with him for the rest of his life.
Addicts almost always have a story like this – a story onto which they grasp that explains who they are and why, a story that explains why they’re using. They believe it’s the root cause of their addictions.
Their perceived trauma becomes an excuse. With time, they should heal from the trauma – but they instead hide behind the perception, the excuse, the feeling that they can never overcome the trauma.
My trauma was my parents moving me to eight different schools in 12 years. After a mid-year move in 8th grade, I broke.
An addict who wants to get clean has to do one thing that, from his book, I don’t believe Matthew Perry ever did. Addicts need to forgive whoever caused the trauma and recognize that the blame for addiction can’t be placed anywhere but on the addict.
I think Matthew Perry was starting to get clean, recognized the trauma, but still held onto it so tightly that he had no way to break free. I think he started using again because he couldn’t find it in himself to forgive them – or to forgive himself – for his entire life.
I watched the same thing happen with Jeff Conway, who was on Celebrity Rehab. He’d been locked in a car trunk at a young age, bullied by some boys who were total jerks, and he couldn’t get over it.
I don’t think Matthew Perry randomly drowned; I imagine toxicity levels in his bloodstream were very high. I’m glad he wrote the book; it gave a clear picture of how much abuse a body can take before crumbling.
But I’m so, so sad that he didn’t recognize his ability to forgive before it was too late. It’s a powerful tool, and one that we all can use to survive the very worst things that were ever done to us – by our parents and anyone else who comes our way.
I will dearly miss Matthew Perry, his quick wit and his sweet soul, even though I never met him. And I am so, so saddened by his death.
When another addict dies, it’s always heartbreaking; but this one hits so close to home, I had to speak up.