Matthew Perry: The tragedy of extreme addiction is that the body may never recover

It was the “addiction memoir” that laid things bare. Last year, when Matthew Perry released Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing, it detailed his 27-year grapple with drink and drugs in unstinting detail: how he ended up on life support with a “two per cent chance to live” after opioid abuse burst his colon, requiring five months of recovery in hospital and nine using a colostomy bag.