THE DEATH OF MATTHEW PERRY!

October 29, 2023

Authenticity, anger, forgiveness, personal responsibility - key topics. Acknowledging anger, challenging societal norms, emphasizing accountability. Listener story shared, gratitude expressed.

2023, Stefan Molyneux

https://www.freedomain.com

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Generated Shownotes

Chapters

0:00:00 Matthew Perry's Tragic Life and Death
0:04:15 Simulated Relationships with Celebrities and Artificial Bonds
0:07:41 Matthew Perry's Parents and Childhood
0:13:56 The impact of Matthew Perry's childhood on his sense of humor
0:20:24 Abandoned by Father, Searching for Comfort
0:23:35 False Forgiveness and the Cycle of Addiction
0:27:24 Phenobarbital and the Struggle with Sleep
0:31:33 Matthew Perry's Tragic Incident in the Hot Tub
0:35:03 The Brutal Reality of Drifting from Dreams
0:38:06 Matthew Perry's Patterns of False Forgiveness Addiction
0:40:03 Matthew Perry's Childhood and Sense of Loneliness
0:43:40 Matthew Perry's Health Issues and Addiction Struggles
0:46:45 The Cost of Addiction and the Importance of Self-Forgiveness
0:49:43 The Unspoken Deal: No Apologies, No Accountability
0:51:28 The anger and frustration towards wrongdoing
0:57:13 Challenging the belief that evildoers escape consequences
1:00:42 The reasons to confront evildoers and protect oneself
1:04:05 Matthew Perry's mother, past relationships, and fear of intimacy
1:14:20 Seeking the Truth: No More Bullshit Non-Answers
1:17:38 Denying, Manipulating, and Avoiding Guilt
1:19:13 Bob's biggest panic button: Hillary Clinton's threats and tactics
1:22:31 Betrayal cycle: From unsafe women to sex addiction and self-betrayal
1:28:37 Confronting Mother's Lack of Emotional Support
1:35:21 The struggle with becoming an abuser
1:46:18 Emotional Bureaucracy vs Emotional Tyranny
1:56:18 Caving to Disapproval?
2:00:25 Blocking manipulative language with a powerful phrase.
2:04:11 The relief of not having to save the world anymore.
2:09:29 The importance of having a tribe and people who matter.
2:13:41 The Tragic Story of Matthew Perry and the Power of Relationships

Long Summary

In this episode, we explore various topics related to authenticity, anger, forgiveness, and personal responsibility. We begin by discussing the idea of seeking validation and approval from others, particularly parents, and how it can lead to a lack of authenticity and self-betrayal. We emphasize the importance of acknowledging and expressing anger as a crucial part of personal growth and integrity.

Our conversation delves into Matthew Perry's relationship with Julia Roberts and his struggles with anger and addiction. We explore the dynamics between anger, self-worth, and the avoidance of closeness in relationships. We also discuss the role of parents in contributing to destructive relationships by not intervening and allowing distractions.

Throughout the conversation, we share personal experiences and reflections. We highlight the diversity of reactions people have to various situations and emphasize the importance of acknowledging individual differences. We also reject the notion of judging anger as good or bad, instead considering anger as a means to express truth.

We shift our focus to the concept of forgiveness and challenge the societal pressure to forgive. We argue that forgiveness should not be mandatory and that the focus should be on holding abusers accountable. We emphasize the importance of being honest about one's feelings and trusting instincts rather than overanalyzing emotions. We express our disdain for emotional bureaucracy and emphasize the need to trust instincts and passions.

The idea of forgiveness is revisited, and we question why forgiveness has to be earned. We criticize manipulation and control tactics used to dictate our emotions. We also express frustration with being told what to feel and criticize emotional manipulation.

Midway through the conversation, we touch on mundane choices and express curiosity. We briefly mention news related to Elon Musk's plans for a platform and discuss the role of philosophy in rediscovering joy and purpose.

We address the topic of being shamed or bullied into forgiveness and question how one can be coerced into forgiveness as an adult. We express frustration with attempts to control our actions and the power of language. We also touch on the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on people's mental well-being and reflect on personal happiness post-COVID.

The conversation then transitions to the importance of personal responsibility and the freedom that comes with no longer feeling the same level of responsibility to save those who are corrupt or abuse drugs. We discuss the liberating feeling of no longer needing to walk on eggshells in a dangerous world. We express our belief that the world is heading towards war and acknowledge the challenges of being alone in a changing world. We stress the importance of having a tribe or support system and finding people who would be there through anything.

We highlight the concept of "kidney people," those individuals in our lives whom we can rely on and who would do anything for us without hesitation. We draw parallels to Matthew Perry's story, where a lack of support ultimately led to his demise. We briefly touch on the TV show Friends and its portrayal of immaturity and avoidance of adulthood.

In closing, we share a touching listener's story of finding love during COVID and highlight the courage it took for her husband to reach out. We express gratitude to the listeners for their support and generosity. We conclude by wishing everyone a happy Halloween and thanking them for joining us on this episode.

Brief Summary

In this episode, we discuss authenticity, anger, forgiveness, and personal responsibility. We highlight the importance of acknowledging anger for personal growth and integrity. We challenge societal pressure to forgive and emphasize the need for accountability. We stress the importance of personal responsibility and having a support system. We share a listener's story of finding love during COVID and express gratitude to our audience.

Transcript

Matthew Perry's Tragic Life and Death

[0:00] Yeah, let's start it off. It's Matthew Perry and I, he just died last night.
I was a bit of a, almost a bit of a shock. You know, when you're younger, you think of that phase in your life where the people from your youth are gonna die.
And he died, Matthew Perry, I guess a famous actor, most known, of course, for his role as Chandler, bing, on Cheers.
And I happened to listen to his autobiography a month or two ago.
And it's really really tragic. He had a wretched life and died in a wretched manner, and we will get to all of that. And I'm sorry for the person who's celebrating. Hey, you know, as some life goes out, other life comes in. As some life goes out, other life comes in. But thank you for keeping my boring night occupied. Always happy, always happy to slip in and milk the old boredom. All right.

[1:01] Question. Hi Steph. Whenever this kind of celebrity death occurs my mind always repeats the phrase, people only like you when you're dead. It always seems that people shower praise upon the dead that they wouldn't offer to the same person if they were living. I first came to this conclusion when Gord Downie of the, Tragically Hip died. I never even heard his name until he'd gotten sick but suddenly everyone was singing his praises. What does philosophy have to say about this. It's a fine question. Have you noticed this? Have you noticed this as a whole that when people die, well, I'm not sure when I die that people will be singing my praises all from start to end and top to bottom, but I can tell you why if you like.

[1:46] Why people sing the praises of those who have died, We will be doing a little bit of that tonight. Well, I really did shave with a shotgun, didn't I?
Well, so the reason why people sing the praises of those who's died is it's superstition, It's superstition because people are concerned, That the dead will haunt them if they speak ill. Have you not heard of of don't speak ill of the dead, it's too soon, they just died, you can't criticize the dead.

[2:21] And do you know why this exists? I mean, okay, we could say, well, it's because of fearing, haunting, but why?
Yeah, oh, you guys are too smart. They secretly hope they'll also get the same treatment if they did bad things.
Right, so the reason you don't speak ill of the dead is so those who aren't dead yet can continue to be assholes knowing that you won't be honest about them after they die.
Because after you die, you get the summation.
So do you know when, if you've had a bad relationship with someone, you get pretty angry when they die?
Have you ever heard of this? You feel bitter, you feel angry.
If you've had a bad relationship with someone and they die, and obviously if the relationship has continued to be bad, you get angry. Do you know why you get angry if that happens, if that occurs?
Why do you get angry at someone? You had a bad relationship and they just up and die.
What's the problem with that?

[3:19] Yeah, they never made it right. So, you know, my father was old, he was sick, I assume for a while.
He died, he didn't contact, he didn't call, he didn't try to make amends.
And so when someone dies, you can judge their life entire, right?
There's no amends coming, there's nothing better, there's never gonna turn around, it's never gonna get better.
And so the desire to evaluate reaches its peak when someone has just died.
And of course, people can judge me all they want when I'm dead.
It'll be, I'll be long beyond caring. So people can judge me all they want.
I mean, they judge me all they want when I'm alive.
It's just the way of the world. So, when someone dies, there's a rush to speak positively of them as a way of warding off, people who've done bad things from being talked about badly after they die, so.

Simulated Relationships with Celebrities and Artificial Bonds

[4:15] Somebody says, I do find it hard to reconcile that the other week my Facebook feed was relatively silent, On the over a thousand Israelis actively being murdered in the most horrific ways, Israelis, I mean, yes, I suppose but remember 20% of Israel is Muslim So you mean Jews, right?
Yet I must have spotted at least 20 separate posts mostly from female friends from high school on Matthew Perry's death I guess there's something about a familiar face that resonates and can create an artificial bond Yes, Celebrities are powerful. Celebrities are powerful and anybody who says otherwise has never looked at the magazines at a checkout stand.
Celebrities are incredibly powerful. People get obsessed with celebrities.
People have entire relationships with celebrities. They're very important to people because they are simulated relationships.
Celebrities are to women as porn is to men.
It's just a simulated relationship that often crowds out real stuff. All right.

[5:15] If you have any other questions before I dive in, I'm here for you.
If you would like to tip, I would hugely...
Seeing celebrities I knew dying off makes me feel old. Well, how about listening to Sting complain about his hearing aid?
Boy, boy. Well, you know what? It's good to feel old.
It's really, really good to feel old because that way you can weigh your time and what you do with it well.
You can weigh your time and what you do with it well. Don't be surprised by suddenly getting real old. Don't don't let that happen to you. You got to do a managed landing to death, right? You don't want to drop off the cliff that way.
You want to get a managed landing to death.

[5:53] But I'm telling you as well, this show or this conversation, this is going to sting.
It's going to sting a little.
This is going to be a bit of a shiv through the ribs, just so you know.
Because when I was thinking of it, it stung me a little, or more than a little.
And I'm a fairly decent proxy for what goes on for you, so just let you know.
You might not want to be driving. This is going to sting a little.
Tear that bandaid off.
That's a good idea. That's a good idea. I'm alright. Hit me with a Y if you're ready to be binged, Are you ready to be binged? Alright, looks like we are.

[6:33] So a little bit about Matthew Perry he was a Canadian kid and he was born from two very, beautiful parents. He continually talked about how his parents were so beautiful. His father was a singer in a mamas and papas style country group or folk group and his mother was some sort of low-rent beauty queen and they were drawn together through vanity I assume, through beauty, through and all of that kind of stuff. If you have a question and a tip I'll do it, I'll get to your question. Now his parents got together when they met I think at a university or something like that and again it's all just basic vanity stuff there was not any particular there wasn't any particular virtues that were occurring among his parents and let me, just make sure I'm on the right page here.

Matthew Perry's Parents and Childhood

[7:41] And his parents, when he was a baby, he was colicky. He had apparently some sort of food or digestion disorder.
And I've known parents with this, have you ever known?
Parents who like, they can't figure out why their kid's crying.
It turns out their kid has some sort of allergy or some sort of disorder of the bowels or the stomach or the intestines.
Oh, you've had that? Yeah, okay. So, you know, it's tough, it's tough.
And so they took their, this was in the 60s, of course, 69? I'm 57, he died at 54, so three years younger. I'm a 66, so 69 I assume.
Your own son had a dairy allergy. Right, so what you need to do is not cover up the crying because the crying is really, really important, right?
So, oh, you turned out to be egg. We barely slept for eight months.
Months. Oh, it's tough, right? It's tough. Okay, so in the late 60s, when Matthew Perry's parents took him to see a doctor because he was crying and not sleeping very well, what did the doctor prescribe? And he...

[8:54] Any questions or guesses as to what the doctor prescribed for a baby who was crying a lot?
Yes. Heavy barbiturates, I think it was. Heavy barbiturates.
And that's a whiskey, yeah, well, you want to read or watch Long Day's Journey Into Night for the whiskey baby thing.
So heavy barbiturates to the point where this baby baby who couldn't sleep because he was in genuine pain, they'd give him this heavy barbiturates and he literally his head would sag and he'd just fall over and Matthew Perry said that his father found this hilarious. His father found this hilarious. Now Matthew Perry in his autobiography says that he did not blame his parents for this, for drugging him as a baby at a couple of weeks of age with heavy barbiturates even though... oh man, hit me with a Y if you've ever had insomnia. Hit me with a Y if you've ever had insomnia. Now you know sleep deprivation is how you psychologically break people down and torture them right? So Matthew Perry says I guess because during the time that he was prescribed these heavy drugs as a baby is the time when your brain develops and learns how to sleep, right?
It is incredibly dangerous for an infant, no question, right?

[10:22] So, the time when Matthew Perry was supposed to be learning how to sleep properly, he was heavily drugged and this development phase probably passed him by.
And so, he says, his entire life, he's never slept more than four hours at a time.
Now, I mean, there are some people who can get by on a little sleep.
I think Bill Clinton was famously one of them. I think, I assume that Elon Musk is another.
But insomnia has been a huge issue for him, and it of course also was a huge issue for Michael Jackson.
And a lot of people who are drug addicts are trying to self-medicate insomnia, if that makes sense. In my opinion, I've sort of read this a fair amount, a fair amount.
So that's just something to ... Oh, Margaret Thatcher did only about five hours a night.
Yeah, that's very, very cool, very cool.
So his parents split up before he was a year old, Matthew Perry's parents split up, and.

[11:20] He was told when he was little that his father was just going to go to work.
And his father went to work, turns out he was living I think in Ottawa or someplace in Canada, in Ontario, and his father went to work because his father wanted to milk his good looks and pursue an acting career in Los Angeles so Matthew Perry's father went and he said I waited for my dad to come home I waited the next day I waited a week I waited a month after about six weeks I realized he wasn't, coming back. He wasn't coming back. So that was not great at all. I just want to up in your comments. I had a friend whose mother thought that if she didn't let her nap as a baby, including as a newborn, that it would help her sleep better at night. It didn't work and she still has terrible sleep issues. Oh, if you didn't let her nap as a baby, it would help her sleep better at night? No, no, no. You got to learn how to nap. You got to learn how to sleep as a baby.
I mean, I've said this forever and ever, amen, that babies do need to learn how to self-soothe and sleep as babies because the studies are very clear that if babies have sleep issues that aren't They still have sleep issues into their 20s and a life where you can't sleep is kind of tortuous, right?
It's pretty drug-induced sleep isn't really sleep. No, no, they just knocked him out.

[12:42] They just knocked out their brains are growing so much. They need those naps Well, they need their naps, but you need to be able to lie down when you're tired and go to sleep, Right, you need to lie down when you're tired and go to sleep anyway.

[12:54] So

[12:57] Matthew Perry's mother name was Suzanne and, She became The Alice and Jenny character from the West Wing like a press secretary.

[13:12] She was the press secretary for noted hard leftist Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau.
And his mother, of course, who was very attractive, Pierre Trudeau dated everyone and their dog.
And so he... and was a heavy, you know, I would say socialist drifting in the neighborhood of communism.
He dated Barbara Streisand, King Cattrall, Margot Kidder, and just about everything and everyone.
And so his mother became the press secretary for Pierre Trudeau.
Now Pierre Trudeau of course, you know, prime minister and a lawyer and famous ladies man and very busy and all the time.

The impact of Matthew Perry's childhood on his sense of humor

[13:56] And so I want you to listen to what a little bit of what Matthew Perry says. He says, I was left to compete with the ongoing concerns of a major Western democracy and its charismatic swordsman leader. Swordsman means penis, right?

[14:20] If I wanted a little attention I was left to compete with the ongoing concerns of a major Western democracy and its charismatic swordsman leader if I wanted a little attention, I believe the phrase at the time was latchkey kid a bland term for being left fucking alone, Accordingly, I learned to be funny, pratfalls, quick one-liners, you know the drill, because I had to be.
My mother was stressed by her stressful job, and already highly emotional and abandoned, and me being funny tended to calm her down enough that she would cook some food, sit, down at the dinner table with me and hear me out after I heard her out, of course.

[15:08] Does that make sense? Now I want you to hear this again. I'm sorry to be repetitive. I know you're a smart audience. I really apologize for this. It's so important to get. I learned to be funny because I had to be.
If he wasn't funny, he got no food. This is all of a twist. This is Charles Dickens' territory.
Do you think, I mean, this is the funny thing, and this is all the way back to my truth about Robin Williams. Do you think people develop intense skills and abilities because they want to?
I don't mean to laugh, I don't mean to laugh. Do you think that I learned how to think so rigorously because I wanted to? I'm sorry, don't mean to laugh.
It's not funny, but it's not a choice.
It's like some kid, like there's a story of this girl, she's like a 12-year-old girl or 13-year-old girl, and she crashed in a plane and she was the only survivor and she survived like a week in the Amazonian forest.
And it's like, wow, you must've really enjoyed hunting. You must've really enjoyed learning how to sleep in a tree.
Wow, what a great hobby. It's like, it's not hobby, it's survival.
It's not hobby, it's survival.
I learned to be funny because I had to be.

[16:28] So she would cook some food. Yeah, Robin Williams had a depressed mother.
You understand, most skills are CPR.
Most skills are life-saving emergencies. is the mother of invention, and neglect is the handmaiden of talent.
When you see people who are really good at something, you see an emergency, like a big giant goth shadow behind them.
Being gloomy around kids is such an ugly thing, I wouldn't even do it around adults.
There's nothing wrong with being gloomy around kids.
You just can't be gloomy and self-absorbed. If you're gloomy, you've got to talk to your kids, right?
So that they don't think that it's their fault. They don't think that it's their issue.
They don't think that it's caused by them.
And honestly, if you've watched Friends, do you not get a sense of desperation off Matthew Perry's character?
And they talk about this, you know, he makes jokes because he's awkward.
He makes jokes because he's not comfortable in his own skin.
He makes jokes out of desperation.

[17:48] So he says, but I'm not blaming my mother for working. Someone had to bring home the bacon.
It just meant I spent a great deal of time alone. So he was an only kid.
In fact, when he heard the word only kid, he referred to himself.
People said, do you have any brothers and sisters? And he would say, no, I'm a lonely kid. I'm a lonely kid.
Because he thought that's what only kid was, right?
He thought only kid was lonely kid for obvious reasons, right?

[18:18] He lost part of his finger. When I was in kindergarten, some dim kid slammed the door on my hand, and after the great sparkles of blood stopped arcing up like fireworks, someone brought a thought to bandage me up and take me to the hospital.
He lost the tip of his middle finger.
Now, he said, my mother was called and sped to the hospital.
She came in sobbing, understandably, and found me standing on a gurney with a gigantic bandage on my hand. Before she could say anything, I said, you don't need to cry. I didn't cry.
Oof. Oof. He's three years old. He's just lost part of his finger. The pain that he was in would have been astonishing, right? His mother comes in and he says, you don't need to cry. I didn't cry. I didn't cry.".

[19:24] He says, there I was already, the performer, the people pleaser. Even at three years old, I'd learned I'd have to be the man of the house. I'd have to take care of my mother, even though my finger had just been sliced off. I guess I'd learned at 30 days old that if I cried, I'd get knocked out, so I'd better not cry. Or I knew I had to make sure everyone, including my mother, felt safe and okay.

[19:52] He was sent on a plane when he was very young. Well, so was I back when you could be an unaccompanied minor and actually the original title, one of the working titles for Matthew Perry's autobiography was unaccompanied minor, because he was lonely.

[20:13] So he says when he and his mother went to go and live He and his mother went to go and live with the grandparents.

Abandoned by Father, Searching for Comfort

[20:24] His dad left.
And his mother said, don't worry, he's just going to work, Matt, so he'll be back.
Come on, little chum, Grandpa would have said. Let's go find Nanny.
She's made your favorite paschetti for dinner.
Every parent goes off to work. They always come back. It's just a normal way of things.
Nothing to worry about, nothing that would bring on a colic attack or addiction or a a lifetime of feeling abandoned, or that I'm not enough, or a continual lack of comfort, or a desperate need for love, or that I didn't matter.
My father sped away, to God knows where. He didn't come back from work that first day, nor the second.
I was hoping he'd be home after three days, then maybe a week, then maybe a month.
But after about six weeks, I stopped hoping.
I was too young to understand where California was or what it meant to go follow his dream of being an actor.
What the fuck is an actor? And where the fuck is my dad?
Now, this is painful.
This is painful, right? In my view, in my, well, how can someone just leave their son?
Well, he's divorced and he wants to go and be an actor. My father wanted to go and be a geologist in Africa, right?

[21:48] Do you think that this causes addiction? This is not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious.
I'm not like, ooh, it's not a rug pulling exercise here.
And you know, not that I'll ever see this, but my heart does go out to the Perry family.
Do you think that this causes addiction, this loneliness, isolation, abandonment, pain, drugging, do you think this causes addiction?
Gabber Mate says, yes. I obviously should listen to Gaber Mattei maybe more than me, but I don't think so.
Because that's causal.
That's causal that takes away free will. And again, I don't want to be overly ideological, right?
Now, was Matthew Perry mistreated by his parents? Well, he was drugged.
And why was he crying? He could have been crying because the parents were about to divorce, right?
So, he was drugged, his parents were fighting all the time, he was abandoned, he was dropped in daycare, his mother was a workaholic, his father left and no one told him what was going on, so...

[23:03] Does he have reasons to be angry at how he was treated as a baby, a toddler and a small child?
Right.
I don't believe, this is just my amateur opinion, I've got no reason for you to believe anything I'm saying, I'm just making an airy-fairy case, alright?
But this is what I truly believe, which doesn't mean that it's true.
It is not the suffering that causes the addiction, it's the false forgiveness that causes the addiction.

False Forgiveness and the Cycle of Addiction

[23:35] It's the excessive, quote, understanding and sympathy and empathy that causes the addiction.
It's the false forgiveness that causes the addiction. It's not holding anyone to account.
It's not holding anyone responsible. Bad things happened.
Well, no, that's a lie. You were abused, you were neglected, you were mistreated, you were abandoned, you were drugged.
Even his father was a real drinker. It's the false forgiveness. Now.

[24:16] What does he say? He said my dad, who later in life became a wonderful father, was leaving his baby alone with a 21-year-old woman he knew was way too young to parent a child on her own.
My mother is wonderful and emotional and she was just too young.
She, like me, had been abandoned too, right there in the parking lot of the border crossing between the U.S. and Canada.
My mother had gotten pregnant when she was 20 years old, and by the time she was 21 and a new mother, she was single.
If I had had a baby at 21, I would have tried to drink it.
She did her best, and that says a lot about her, but still, she simply wasn't ready for the responsibility.
And I wasn't ready to deal with anything, just being born and all.

[24:58] Mom and I were both abandoned, in fact, before we'd even gotten to know each other.
With Dad gone, I quickly understood that I had a role to play at home.
My job is to entertain, to cajole, to delight, to make others laugh, to soothe, to please, to be the fool to the entire court.
It's not the suffering that causes the addiction.
It's the refusal to process the anger. The anger is a self-defense against the addiction, and if you won't process the anger, you're helpless against the recreation. In my view. In my view.

[25:47] So, sorry to jump around a bit, I don't have everything in sequence here.
He says, around my ninth month of life, my parents decided they'd had enough of each other, stashed me in a car seat in Williamstown, and the three of us drove to the Canadian border.
Five and a half hours. I can just imagine the silence of that car ride. I didn't speak, of course, and the two former lovebirds in the front seat had had enough of speaking to each other, and yet that silence must have been deafening. Some major shit was going down.
I'm told, my father took me out of my car seat, handed me into my grandmother's arms, and with that he quietly abandoned me and my mother.

[26:29] Oh, they just decided they'd had enough of each other. It's like, you don't have that option, particularly when you've decided to have a child.
They didn't work it out, but he doesn't blame anything, right?
Phenobarbital at 30 days of age.
But he says, but it wasn't that rare in the 1960s to slip the parents of a colicky child a major barbiturate.
Some older doctors swore by it, and by it I mean, quote, prescribing a major barbiturate for a child that's barely born who won't stop crying.
I want to be very clear on this point, says Matthew Perry, the late Matthew Perry, I want to be very clear on this point, I do not blame my parents for this.
I do not blame my parents for this.

Phenobarbital and the Struggle with Sleep

[27:24] He said, I'm told I took phenobarbital. Okay, you didn't take it.
During the second month of my life, between the ages of 30 and 60 days, this is an important time in a baby's development, especially when it comes to sleeping, 50 years later, I still don't sleep well.
Now what was his major addiction later, to some degree, was barbiturates, right?
Now he says, once the barbiturate was on board, I would just conk out.
Apparently I'd be crying and the drug would hit, I'd be knocked out, and this would cause my father to erupt in laughter. He wasn't being cruel. Stoned babies are funny. Doesn't, that hurt your soul to hear? Stoned babies are funny? Isn't that, that's horrible.

[28:32] Ironically, he says, Barbiturates and I have had a very strange relationship over the years.
People would be surprised to know that I've been mostly been sober since 2001, save for about 60 or 70 little mishaps over the years. When these mishaps occur, if you want to be sober, which I always did, you'd be given drugs to help you along.
What drug you may ask, you guessed it, phenobarbital.
Phenobarbital. So his father found it funny, that his baby was passing out from drugs.
He says, despite the comfort of my situation as an adult, I still spent many sleepless nights in Southern California. Sleep is a real issue for me, especially when I'm in one of those, these places.
That said, I don't think I've ever slept for more than four hours straight in my entire, life. All right. Let's do one or two more.
All right, let's do one or two more.
Now, now, he said, and he's been in therapy, he was in therapy for decades, he said, by this point I knew more about drug addiction and alcoholism than any of the coaches and most of the doctors I encountered at these rehab facilities. He's 49 years old.

[29:58] Unfortunately such self-knowledge avails you nothing. If the golden ticket to sobriety involved hard work and learned information, this beast would be nothing but a faint unpleasant memory. To simply stay alive I had turned myself into a professional patient. Let's not sugarcoat it. At 49, tell me if this if you relate to this at all. At 49, I was still afraid to be alone. Left alone, my crazy brain, crazy only in this area by the way, would find some excuse to do the unthinkable, drink and drugs. In the face of decades of my life having been ruined by doing this, I'm terrified of doing it again. I have no fear of talking in front of 20,000 people. But put me alone on my couch in front of a TV for the night and I get scared. And that fear is of my own mind, fear of my own thoughts, fear that my mind will urge me to turn to drugs as it has so many times before. My mind is out to kill me and I know it.

[31:11] I'm constantly filled with a lurking loneliness a yearning clinging to the notion that something outside of me will fix me, But I had had all that the outside had to offer, Matt's parents and stepdad found his body. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true.

Matthew Perry's Tragic Incident in the Hot Tub

[31:33] My understanding is that he played two hours of pickleball yesterday morning, He got home, he sent his assistant out to get new prescriptions for his glasses and to get him a new iPhone.
His assistant came back home and found Matthew Perry in the hot tub, and the assistant called 911.
The paramedics showed up. There were no illicit drugs, but there was apparently a heart failure.
People are saying he drowned.
My understanding, this may change over time of course, but my understanding is that he'd had heart failure and of course he died from heart failure and then slid into the water.
He says, my grandfather, the wonderful Alton L. Perry, grew up around an alcoholic father And as a result, he never touched a drink in his life all 96 long wonderful years of it.

[32:39] So there's your free will right, Why am I a drunk because my father drank why do I never touch alcohol because my father drank, Well sucks his parents outlived him Right, Are you ready for the part that hurts?

[33:06] Are you ready?
It won't hurt you that much if you're young, it might hurt you.
Oh no, this is hurting from observation to experience, from the outside to the inside.
What do you think Matthew Perry's father thinks today of his desire to go off to L.A. and be an actor when Matthew Perry was a baby?
What do you think he thinks of abandoning his family to pursue his dreams?
What do you think he thinks of that today? No, it is not nothing. It is not nothing.
He doesn't think about it at all? No, I don't believe that's true.
Let me ask you this. I know that you guys are cynical, and maybe you're right, cynical about.
People, oh, they just don't care. Have you never lifted the lid off someone's selfishness and seen what's underneath?

[34:15] Have you ever peeled back the layers and seen what's underneath that level of selfishness?
Once. I've seen it twice in my life. It's beyond appalling, it's beyond terrifying, it's beyond terrible. It is literally looking into the bowels of hell itself.
How do you peel that layer off? Persistence, curiosity. No, it's not emptiness.
It's not emptiness, it's unbelievable levels of pain. I don't believe you can connect to this as someone too narcissistic.

The Brutal Reality of Drifting from Dreams

[35:03] Everybody who's unwell has a relationship to health. Everybody who's selfish has a relationship to selflessness.
Everybody who's greedy has a relationship to generosity. Everybody who's ugly has a a relationship to beauty, everybody who's evil has a relationship to good.
And if you measure that and you give them a sense of the distance they've drifted from what they wanted, it's brutal when people get a sense of how far they've drifted from what they wanted, how far they've drifted from what they dreamed of, how far they've drifted from what they thought their life would be or could be.
I mean, do you know what Matthew Perry's father was known for?
Went to as a singer and an actor and went to Los Angeles. And do you know what Matthew Perry's father was famous for? What his big claim to fame was? He starred as a sailor, in some Old Spice commercials.
And when Matthew Perry decided he wanted to be an actor, do you know what his father said?
There's another generation ruined.

[36:25] Aren't commercials the entry-level stuff for actors? Yeah, yeah, Yes, they are And he never had much of a career, Now, I'm sure that Matthew Perry's mother was really, really excited to be Pierre Trudeau's press secretary, right?
Very exciting. So cool.
Now that's all gone. And she's got a dead child's head in her lap.
Pierre Trudeau is gone. The 70s are gone. The paycheck's gone, the fame is gone, and what is she left with?
A soggy, dead child's head in her lap.

[37:36] So Matthew Perry has said that when he was drugged with the sphenobarbital as a baby, it was the first instance of trying to fix a problem with a drug rather than investigating and solving the root cause.
Trying to fix a problem with a drug rather than investigating and solving the root cause.

Matthew Perry's Patterns of False Forgiveness Addiction

[38:07] Now, I'm going to tell you something, and again, this is going to be illuminating and painful.
I mean it with love.
Matthew Perry suggests that this was the first instance of trying to fix a problem with a drug rather than investigating and solving the root cause, establishing a pattern he would later repeat. Now everyone thinks that's about his own alcoholism and drug addiction.
No.
Fixing a problem with a drug rather than investigating and solving the root cause, that drug is false forgiveness.
That drug is false forgiveness. The real addiction is to the false forgiveness, fixing a problem with a drug rather than investigating and solving the root cause.
Do you follow?
The false forgiveness is the drug. It's the ultimate drug and it's the real addiction.

[39:12] Toxic effects of phenobarbital on small children, trouble breathing and even death.
Side effects, irritability, hyperactivity, disordered sleep and digestive problems.
Digestive problems. Now, do you know that Matthew Perry, his colon exploded from opioid use, and he spent two weeks in a coma and he spent five months in hospital and ended up being discharged with a colostomy bag because of his colon exploding, from decades of opioid use.

Matthew Perry's Childhood and Sense of Loneliness

[40:03] He says Matthew Perry often felt alone and parentless during his childhood. One of his his earliest memories is of traveling alone from Canada to LA to visit his father. He, was only five years old and he flew as an unaccompanied minor. He remembers being scared and feeling relief when he finally saw LA from the plane knowing he would soon be with a parent. He believes that memory is behind him feeling at ease, less lonely in homes or apartments with a view of the city lights. So when he was five, he saw the city below him, LA's coming, that's where my parent is, and he always would buy giant apartments and houses overlooking a city, because it gave him that sense of peace, of that relief.
Now his mother worked long hours, and he said one of his favourite memories was sitting with his mother when he was eight years old and watching Woody Allen's movie Annie Hall, and he says, like, I didn't understand the adult sexual and romantic conversations, but, He thought it was funny that he had a home under a roller coaster and sneezed into powder.
So he was often home alone. Now, knowing that his father had taken a plane to go to California, every time Matthew Perry saw a plane overhead, he would say, Is my dad on that plane? Is my mom on that plane?
Are they coming back? Are they going? Are they gone? Are they on that plane?

[41:32] So when he had this wonderful day with his mother, they played games.
They tried paying Monopoly, although he said it's tough with just two people.
They watched Annie Hall. He had a wonderful day with his mother.
Then the phone rang and on the phone was Pierre Elliott Trudeau the prime minister saying I need to talk to you mom boom They was done day was done It was done, He also went to school with Justin Trudeau and, Beat him up now his Mother dated. I don't know He doesn't exactly say how many but his mother dated a whole series of men and of course like most lonely sons he would try to latch on to these father figures as they passed through like shadowy Nazgul through his mother's bed and they would always end up breaking up and leaving and so he was constantly attaching and detaching constantly attaching and detaching.

[42:26] By age 10 his father had remarried, had new babies, his mother remarried, had new babies and he would felt very much like the odd person out. By age 10 he starts stealing money, he stopped smoking, he was a lifelong smoker and a heavy smoker as well.
He gave up on schoolwork and then, when did you first get a, when did you first have a drink? Hit me with your age when you first had a drink, just out of curiosity.
I'm trying to remember. I think I was, I mean not just like a sip, but like a drink.
I think I was 17 or something like that.
So we all got like late to mid, mid-late teens, early 20s for most of you, right?
Yeah, so some of you at 12, okay So some of you so Matthew Perry had his first drink at the age of 14 and was drinking alcohol every day by the age of 18, Boy it wasn't beer a big disappointment after all those commercials. Oh this tastes like carbonated rat's piss.

[43:25] And did you notice, of course, that he would go up and down the bloat scale during the series of Friends?
He actually doesn't remember in three series, three seasons of Friends, he has no memory of it at all, of anything like that, right?
No memory at all.

Matthew Perry's Health Issues and Addiction Struggles

[43:40] Seasons three and six. Three to six. No, doesn't remember. Three entire years.
He used a colostomy bag after his colon, his colon, gastrointestinal perforation, they called it. This was 2018. He was admitted to hospital, the doctors told his family that he had a 2% chance of survival, and, he had to be hooked up to a machine to breathe for him. This was in 2018. In 2020, he was in rehab in Switzerland, he faked pain to get a prescription of 1,800 milligrams of OxyContin per day, and was having daily ketamine infusions.

[44:25] 1800 milligrams of OxyContin? Am I going to assume that that's...
I don't know, right? Am I going to assume that that's...
Because you know, people build up this tolerance, right?
I mean, diminishing, right?
So he was given Propofol in conjunction with the surgery, which stopped his heart for five minutes.
The resulting cardiopulmonary resuscitation resulted in eight broken ribs.
He paid $175,000 for a private jet to take him to Los Angeles to get more drugs.
When doctors there refused, he spent another $175,000 to take a private jet back to Switzerland.
In 2022, he estimated that he'd spent how much on his addiction?
How much had he spent, by his estimate, on his addiction?
He estimated that he'd spent $9 million on his addiction, including 14 stomach surgeries, 15 stays in rehab, as well as 6,000 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and therapy twice a week for 30 years.

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