Matthew Perry Spoke Candidly About His Sobriety Journey in Year Before His Death

The actor was found dead in a Los Angeles-area home on Saturday

Matthew Perry shared many unflinchingly candid details about his addiction struggles — and subsequent sobriety journey — in the year leading up to his death.

On Saturday, the actor — who was best known for his role as Chandler Bing on Friends — was found dead at a Los Angeles-area home, TMZ reported, citing law enforcement sources, who also confirmed Perry's death to the Los Angeles Times. Perry was 54.

In an October 2022 interview with PEOPLE, ahead of the release of his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry revealed that he almost died at 49 due to his escalating drug addiction. He said he spent two weeks in a coma fighting for his life, followed by a five-month hospital stay and a year using a colostomy bag, after his colon burst from opioid overuse.

When Perry was first admitted to the hospital, doctors told his family he had only a "2 percent 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 that," he recalled.

Perry also recounted a terrifying time during his Friends years when he was popping 55 Vicodin pills a day and had dropped to just 128 pounds.

"I didn't know how to stop," he said. "If the police came over to my house and said, 'If you drink tonight, we're going to take you to jail,' I'd start packing. I couldn't stop because the disease and the addiction is progressive. So it gets worse and worse as you grow older."

Related: Matthew Perry Says 'Friends' Cast Rallied Around Him at Height of His Addiction: 'They Were Patient'

Perry revealed that he went to rehab 15 times over the years and spent a fortune trying to get sober. He told The New York Times last year that he "probably spent $9 million or something" in his quest to kick his addiction.

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His harrowing, near-death experience was what ultimately motivated him to finally get sober. "My therapist said, 'The next time you think about taking OxyContin, just think about having a colostomy bag for the rest of your life,' " he told PEOPLE. "And a little window opened, and I crawled through it, and I no longer want OxyContin."

Perry quit drinking after having what he described as an encounter with God in his kitchen. "It was this bright yellow object that became all-encompassing. I couldn't see the kitchen anymore," he recalled.

"It was just this light, and I felt loved and understood, and in the company of God or whatever. My dad was right next to me and we were holding hands and I was praying when it started, which is something I rarely did. It was like God showed me what's possible. And then said, 'Okay. Now you go learn this.' "

Related: The Biggest Revelations from Matthew Perry's Memoir, 'Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing'

The actor said he decided to share his deeply personal experiences in his memoir in order to help others on a similar journey.

"I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again," he said. "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."

Perry was proud of his hard-won sobriety, but never took it for granted. He told PEOPLE last year that he still counted each day.

"It's important, but if you lose your sobriety, it doesn't mean you lose all that time and education," he noted. "Your sober date changes, but that's all that changes. You know everything you knew before, as long as you were able to fight your way back without dying, you learn a lot."

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