Motivation Daily by Motiversity - Matthew Perry Will Leave You SPEECHLESS | One of the Most Eye Opening Interviews Ever

Episode Date: November 17, 2023

THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T TOUCH ALCOHOL. Matthew Perry shares his experience with alcohol use disorder. Matthew Perry was an American and Canadian actor, creator, writer, producer and author. Best known for his role as Chandler Bing on the NBC television sitcom Friends. Perry suffered from severe addictions to drugs and alcohol. In his memoirs, Perry wrote that he became an alcoholic at age 14. Through his recovery, he became an advocate for rehabilitation and a spokesperson for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals. In 2013, Perry received the Champion of Recovery Award from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. In 2022, he released his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing. He passed away on Oct. 28 2023.At least one in ten Americans meet the criteria for either alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence; which we now call 'alcohol use disorder."Special thanks to our partners and to these channels, subscribe to them here:https://www.youtube.com/@QwithTomPowerhttps://www.youtube.com/@PartnershiptoEndAddictionhttps://www.youtube.com/@VALUETAINMENThttps://www.youtube.com/@TheDiaryOfACEOhttps://www.youtube.com/@lewishowesMusic: AudioJungleWays to stay connected with MotivationHub and stay motivated:▶Subscribe for New Motivational Videos:  https://bit.ly/motivationhubofficial▶SHOP Official Motivational Canvases and Apparel:https://bit.ly/motiversityshop▶BECOME A MEMBER of our loyal community!https://bit.ly/hubmemberships Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The link is in the description. Every day when you're waking up, when you're working out, or if you just need a mental boost, download mindset to start your day right. If somebody comes up to me and says, I can't stop drinking, can you help me? I can say yes and follow up and do it. That's the best thing.

And I've said this for a long time. When I die, I don't want friends to be the first thing that's mentioned. I want that to be the first thing to mention. And I'm going to live the rest of my life proving that. Most people, when they drink, they feel a little kind of queasy and a little silly, and then they stop. But for me, that's what happened. Want more and more and more and more. You start partying with your friends, but you notice that your friends stop and switch to coffee.

11 o'clock at night or maybe your friend goes, no, you know what, I've had enough, I'm going to have a glass of water. But you, you don't stop. I was the last girl at the bar going, come on, come on, let's have Zambuca shots at this point. I didn't know what an end was. An end was me just going to bed. So that's not normal. My relationship with alcohol was different from that of my peers, because I would be the last person to leave. I was immediately sneaking drinks. I was the one who was throwing up and blacking out when everyone else knew what time it was to go home. And there was nothing really sexy or romantic or rock and roll about it. It was just really kind of sad and pathetic to the point where at the end I was alone,

alienated from my friends. My family didn't want anything to do with me until I sorted this out. Just a brief lesson in alcoholism for you guys that don't know. And addiction, of course. It's a disease. That's the first thing I didn't know. In 1956, I think the American Medical Association said it was a disease. And it's a two-prong disease.

Two things happen to me and 10 million other people in the United States. It's an obsession of your mind. Feel nothing. Feel nothing. Except deep, deep grief and the obsession to get more. So I think that's the hardest part about the disease of addiction is this pull, is the compulsion and the obsession for more, yet knowing that more is the thing that is leading to depression,

the rock bottom, the not wanting to be here anymore. And then there's an allergy to your body, which means once you put in the martini, your body basically goes, okay, now give me everything you did, last time and more. There's two problems. There's severe addiction and whatever comes with that. The neurobiological consequences,

and everything comes with addiction, and then there's the trauma. So, you know, you cannot... You're still holding on to. Oh, sure. It's in their body. It's embedded in them. It's not... It's a fixed phenomenon once somebody's been traumatized.

But that trauma can't really be treated until the addiction is well in hand. You can't start treating the trauma of stratophotaph, First of what they can't access it. And secondly, it just fuels the addiction. It has nothing to do with weakness. It's a disease that we have. And we don't know that we have it.

And if somebody says, just stop, you know, you want to punch them in the face. You know, for so many of us, I think that there's this notion of just stop. Why don't they just stop? Just stopping doesn't work. There needs to be a support system. There needs for the attic. We need 12-step meetings. therapy. We need, you know, to evaluate our mental health. We need to work the steps. We need a sponsor.

We need a community of people that share our very same struggle so we can see ourselves and experience the therapeutic value of one addict helping another. That is our peace. But until we get there, just stopping is almost impossible. He turned me around and said, just remember, it's not your fault. And I went, what? You said, it's not your fault. And I went, say that again. it's not your fault. And I said, what do you mean? It's not my fault. I'm going to what he's doing it.

What do you mean? And he explained addiction and alcohol to me, and he saved my life. You have to eliminate that from your thought process because the people who've gone through addiction, this is not a choice. Nobody is asked for this to happen. This is not his fault. So let's start there and start with love and support

and say, look, I want to help you. And what most people do is say, why can't you just stop? Well, ask somebody, why can't you stop breathing? When you have a compulsive disorder of the brain, it's not logical. Why would I put a poison into my body

that is ruining my life? That's not logical. So to tell me to stop is not, doesn't make sense. Clearly there's something wrong with my brain. I've learned this compulsive disorder. I can't drink because if I drink, I can't stop.

So I've found an A&A. for a long period of time. And a lot of people have said to me, if hard work and muscling it in would get you sober, you would have been sober 20 years ago, because I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried. But it's ultimately some kind of spiritual connection that you need to have some kind of fainth in.

Oftentimes it's a destructive pattern, whether it was sex or with drugs or whatever. of trading in what I truly wanted, what I truly believed to be the truth. Because my truth is that I am the best version of myself when I am clear. You know, I choose to call it God, but that God presence, that being is absolutely moving through me. I've never been able to feel that without a spiritual practice. Music has always been a spiritual practice for me. but I think that it's made me who I am.

I've made tons of mistakes. And since I've been famous, I made tons of mistakes that were, that were, you know, influenced by the drugs that I was doing or, you know, the positions that I got myself in. But those also turned into learning moments. They turned into maybe a song or maybe a conversation or maybe the thing that I needed to share about in a 12-step meeting that saved someone's life. I don't know. I don't know. but I know that I'm here. I know that I'm here for a reason.

And it took over decades of my life, and I pray to you, if you worry that you're having this problem, or you know somebody that is, raise your hand, find somebody who's smarter than you about this, and talk to them, and be honest about it, because the secrets are what kill us. If you're struggling with some kind of addiction, like I was, It's not easy to say that

But I wanted to change I just didn't know how Then I had to find a way To fill myself up with other things That could replace the habits that I had And 24 hours Turned into one day Turn into two days

Three days, four days Five days And soon enough Soon enough I started building a new habit And a new lifestyle One person, all it takes is one person to break the curse of any family.