Matthew Perry Details Addiction During 'Friends': 'I Was Dying'

"Friends" star Matthew Perry is opening up about his struggle with drug and alcohol addiction while filming the iconic sitcom.

The 53-year-old actor, best known for his role as Chandler Bing, revealed all the behind-the-scenes details of fighting drug and alcohol addiction while filming the "money-maker" sitcom in his new memoir, "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing," which will be released early next month.

According to an extract published by The Times Saturday, Perry wrote that he detoxed more than 25 times in his life, with the first taking place at age 26 when his Vicodin habit "kicked in badly" during the production of "Friends" Season 3. The actor shared that fans can track his addiction if they observe his weight through the seasons.

"I must have lost three and a half stone in the off-season. My weight varied between 9st 2lb (128 pounds) and 16st 1lb (225 pounds) during the 'Friends' years," Perry wrote. "You can track the trajectory of my addiction if you gauge my weight from season to season — when I'm carrying weight, it's alcohol; when I'm skinny, it's pills. When I have a goatee, it's lots of pills."

The actor revealed that he would spend most of his time figuring out how to get at least "55 Vicodin a day," including making calls, seeing doctors, faking migraines and finding crooked nurses, because he would "get so sick" if he didn't take that many pills.

But Perry realized that he felt terrible about the situation and promised to seek treatment after filming the third season of "Friends."

"Something's really wrong with me, I thought, but I kept going and kept going. I'll finish the season of 'Friends' and then I'll get treatment for this," he wrote.

He said that he loved working with his co-stars and always wanted to step up for them but that addiction "wakes up before you know it." Perry's struggles worsened when he booked the movie "Almost Heroes" alongside the late comedian Chris Farley.

Perry wrote that they shared the same addiction to pills and couldn't even finish shooting the 1998 movie in northern California.

At the time, Perry was filming "Friends" and "Almost Heroes" simultaneously and felt tired because the pills "were not doing what they used to do." He also opted not to eat while he was high as he would just feel sick and constantly vomit.

"I vomited behind trees, behind rocks, in ladies' rooms. I had heard of people looking through their own vomit for chunks of pills that they could take again, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. I already had so many doctors on the payroll I was rarely in that kind of need anyway," he explained. "But I did have two towels next to my toilet — one to wipe away the vomit and one to wipe away the tears. I was dying, but I couldn't tell anyone about it."

When Farley died in 1997 due to drug addiction before the release of "Almost Heroes," Perry was furious and even punched a hole in the wall of his "Friends" co-star Jennifer Aniston's dressing room. Since then, the actor was high all the time, but no one knew about it.

"No one knew — not my family, my friends, no one. I was impossibly sick all the time. I would try to quit every now and then — three days here, four days there — but it just made me so sad and sick that it was impossible to sustain," Perry wrote.

At 26, the actor was urged to enter rehab when his now-ex-girlfriend noticed that something was wrong with him and brought him to a doctor.

Perry was advised to go to Hazelden rehabilitation center in Minnesota. There, he went through a "rapid detox," in which medical professionals would sedate him for two or three days and fill him with a substance that blocked the effects of opiates. He was supposed to become sober after that, but he said it didn't work.

"I did the rapid detox and then went up to Hazelden, but once I arrived, I felt like death. What they say about opioid detoxes is they can't kill you, but they can make you wish that you were dead. I was in my room at Hazelden, and I was incredibly sick — I kicked like a f---ing dog. Legs, arms jerking in sheer terror. I was continually begging for some relief, only to be told: 'You're detoxed, just relax,'" the actor shared in his memoir.

Two weeks later, Perry apparently felt much better and returned to California to continue filming the fourth season of "Friends." But the actor relapsed following his first glass of alcohol.

During the hiatus between "Friends" Seasons 6 and 7 in the early 2000s, the actor was found taking pills in his bedroom and handling drug dealers instead of celebrating after his film "The Whole Nine Yards" became a blockbuster hit.

Perry had attempted to get back on his feet when filming for "Friends" started once again as he didn't want to let down his co-stars, whom he described as "wonderful people," and the "successful" show.

Eventually, the other cast members, including Aniston, whom Perry had a massive crush on at the time, noticed that he was drunk or high despite still showing up to do his lines.

In a preview of the actor's upcoming interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC News, Perry revealed that Aniston was the one who "reached out the most" when his drinking spiraled out of control.

"I'm really grateful to her for that," he said in the interview.

Fans can learn more about Perry's addiction journey when his memoir "Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing" hits bookstores on Nov. 1.