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Matthew Perry said he “often thought I was dying” while receiving ketamine infusion therapy, adding that the depression treatment was “not for me”.
Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home on 28 October. He was 54.
The beloved Friends star, whose sudden passing was mourned by fans around the world, died from the “acute effects of ketamine”, according to a coroner’s report released on Friday (15 December).
His death was ruled an accident, with contributing factors listed as drowning, coronary artery disease and buprenorphine effects. Buprenorphine is a synthetic opiod used to treat pain and opiod use disorder.
The autopsy found that Perry had been receiving ketamine infusion therapy for depression and anxiety but the ketamine detected in his system at death could not have been from his last therapy session, which conducted about a week and a half before he died.
This is because ketamine’s half-life, or the time it takes for the amount of the drug to be reduced in the body by 50 per cent, is about three to four hours.
Perry was found dead in a hot tub at his Los Angeles home on 28 October. He was 54.
(Getty Images)
“At the high levels of ketamine found in his postmortem blood specimens, the main lethal effects would be from both cardiovascular overstimulation and respiratory depression,” the autopsy report, obtained byMail Online, revealed.
In his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry wrote about receiving ketamine infusions at a rehab centre in Switzerland during the pandemic, explaining that a synthetic form of the dissociative anesthetic is used “to ease pain and help with depression”.
For this reason, he wrote, “they might as well have called it ‘Matty’”.
“They’d bring me into a room, sit me down, put headphones on me so I could listen to music, blindfold me, and put an IV in,” Perry, best-known for playing Chandler Bing on the hit 90s sitcom, described his sessions.
“As the music played and the K ran through me, it all became about the ego, and the death of the ego. And I often thought that I was dying during that hour. Oh, I thought, this is what happens when you die,” he continued.
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Perry said “taking K was like being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel” but he decided to stop the sessions because the “hangover was rough and outweighed the shovel”.
“Ketamine was not for me.”
Ahead of the release of the book, Perry, who struggled with drug and alcohol addictions, revealed he had spent “$9m [£7.4m] or something trying to get sober”.
In June 2022, after 15 stints in rehab and therapy sessions, Perry said he was “pretty healthy” and determined to help others struggling with addiction.
The Emmy-winning actor founded Perry House, a sober living facility for men, which he ran out of his old Malibu beach home from 2013 until 2015.
At the time of his death, the creator of Friends said Marta Kauffman said, Perry was sober.
“He seemed better than I had seen in a while. I was so thrilled to see that. He was emotionally in a good place, he looked good, he quit smoking,” she told TODAY show’s Hoda Kotb.
“He was happy and chipper. He didn’t seem weighed down by anything. He was in a really good place, which is why this seems so unfair,” Kauffman added.
If you or someone you know is suffering from drug addiction, you can seek confidential help and support 24-7 from Frank, by calling 0300 123 6600, texting 82111, sending an email or visiting their website here.
In the US, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration can be reached at 1-800-662-HELP.