Matthew Perry’s Secret Battle: What 6,000 AA Meetings Reveal About the Chandler Bing You Never Knew!
Added on August 16, 2025 inCelebrity News Cards
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Addiction is a beast nobody chooses to wrestle with, yet some battles define a life more than the laughs they left behind. Take Matthew Perry — he wasn’t just Chandler Bing from Friends, but a man who walked through the shadows of addiction with staggering courage, attending nearly 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Born under the sign of Libra, a star known for balance and harmony, perhaps Perry’s struggle was an intense cosmic tug-of-war between light and darkness. He faced his demons head-on, sharing his story in his memoir and peeling back the curtain on a journey that was as turbulent as it was tragically human. His untimely death at 54 came with the heartbreaking revelation of the ‘acute effects of ketamine,’ closing a chapter that left his friends and fans mourning deeply. What does it say about the stars — or life itself — when laughter is both a remedy and a desperate cling? Here’s a glimpse into a life filled with struggle, resilience, and the bittersweet legacy Perry left behind. LEARN MORE.
Warning: This article contains discussion of addiction which some readers may find distressing.
Matthew Perry previously revealed that he’d attended around 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in order to curb his addiction.
The actor – best known for playing Chandler Bing in the beloved sitcom Friends – tragically passed away in October 2023 at the age of 54. His cause of death was ultimately ruled as ‘the acute effects of ketamine’.
Prior to his passing, Perry had been open about his struggles with drugs and alcohol over the years, revealing in his 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, that he’d first tried alcohol at the age of 14.
The 17 Again actor would then go on to experience dependency on various drugs over the years, first attending rehab in 1997.
Matthew Perry passed away almost two years ago now (Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for GQ)
His behind-the-scenes battle would continue throughout his time on Friends, with the star even revealing that he struggled to remember filming from seasons three to six due to his addiction issues.
“I don’t remember three years of it. So none of those,” he previously told the BBC. “I was a little out of it.”
The memoir also laid bare the extreme lengths which Perry went through in order to combat the addiction.
Perry estimated that he’d checked in to rehab 15 times and undergone 14 stomach surgeries due to health complications. He said he’d even attended as many as 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings by the time of writing his memoir.
“In the dictionary under the word ‘addict’, there should be a picture of me looking around, very confused,” Perry wrote.
He played Chandler Bing on the popular sitcom Friends (NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images via Getty Images)
Perry’s Friends co-star Jennifer Aniston (that’s Rachel Green) recently told Vanity Fair that she thinks his death is ‘better’ for him.
“We did everything we could when we could,” she said of her co-stars, Courteney Cox, Matt LeBlanc, David Schwimmer and Lisa Kudrow. “But it almost felt like we’d been mourning Matthew for a long time because his battle with that disease was a really hard one for him to fight.
“As hard as it was for all of us and for the fans, there’s a part of me that thinks this is better. I’m glad he’s out of that pain.”
Upon hearing of his passing, Aniston posted a touching tribute to Perry on Instagram.
It read, in part: “He was such a part of our DNA. We were always the 6 of us. This was a chosen family that forever changed the course of who we were and what our path was going to be.
“For Matty, he KNEW he loved to make people laugh. As he said himself, if he didn’t hear the ‘laugh’ he thought he was going to die. His life literally depended on it.
“And boy did he succeed in doing just that. He made all of us laugh. And laugh hard.”
Jennifer Aniston recently spoke out about Perry’s death (Ron Davis/Getty Images)
Aniston concluded: “Matty, I love you so much and I know you are now completely at peace and out of any pain. I talk to you every day… sometimes I can almost hear you saying ‘could you BE any crazier?’
“Rest little brother.
“You always made my day…”
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Additional words by Dan Seddon.
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