I have been clean and sober for two years and one day.
I was thinking about messaging my wonderful therapist and addiction specialist, Bea, to share the current state of this indescribable, unfathomable, unparalleled journey. We stopped our wonderful, bimonthly relationship a few months ago, as she was approaching motherhood, she must have given birth sometime this month. I’m always reluctant to ask expectant mothers how they are doing. Always worried that something might have gone wrong. I have seen way too many examples of things turning out not only unexpectedly badly, but at times tragically.
Still, I might still message her. She was there to congratulate me with a face beaming with joy on my “first birthday”, as she called it, it would be nice to share this second one with her as well. She played a huge part of me not only becoming, but also staying sober in these past two years.
It was three days after Matthew Perry passed away that we had one of our last sessions. I was devastated. She had been worried about my reaction right after having heard it had happened. She knew how much he, and his incredible story meant to me.
I have never been too enthusiastic about celebrities. Never got “starstruck” in my life. Fame means absolutely nothing to me, not something to aspire to or even admire in another person. I don’t start to hyperventilate if I happen to pass by a famous person on the street (not that it happens that often). I would never stand in a long line to get a selfie or an autograph. Frankly, I could never grasp the hysteria around celebrities. They are just people, most of them not that different than any of us living our ordinary little lives out of the limelight.
Matthew Perry was different. And I know not just for me.
The devastation I felt at the news of his passing was simply unparalleled. I had just woken up, wrapped in the arms of my love after a yummy Sunday sleep, when she broke the news to me. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I couldn’t believe it. Not after having read his memoir twice since it came out a year before.
The moment I saw the first advertisement of his book, probably some time around the summer of 2022, I knew that I would buy it the minute it would get published. I had been just a few months sober then, thirsty for any source of inspiration, any story which would have the power of keeping me on track. I knew it would be one of the most life-changing books I would ever read. Boy, was I right.
So far, I have read the book four times. Three times in English, and I even bought and read the Italian translation. Devoured it overnight all those four times. Tears would come at the exact same words all those four times. The same tears. The same pain. The same life-changing realizations.
But mostly, the hope. Hope – that it would all be okay. That it is possible to leave addiction behind. And devastation – that it will never be okay. That it is not possible to leave addiction behind, ever. Facing that I, just like him, can find a way out of the darkest, most abominable depths of this nightmare, but cannot ever leave it behind completely. There is no finish line to cross. This is not a marathon I can ever complete, that I can train for, as I do year after year. And it is not a linear route, the smooth journey I had hoped it would be when I first got clean.
That first attempt lasted five months. Then, I was back at square one, just like Matthew Perry was innumerable times. Every single word he writes about falling back into the pit – I can feel it. I only have the advantages of youth; I managed to put my life back together by my early thirties. I also have the fortunate advantage of being addicted to only one substance. But as a recovering, at times relapsing benzo addict, his journey was more than relatable.
And just like him, the absolute king of comedic genius, there is absolutely no guarantee that I will never fall back into the pit. Who knows what life has in store for me, what might happen that could make me slip – two years in, and the intense craving for just one pill has never left me. I could kill for a pill. Just one. Even knowing that it would never be just one. His struggle, although way more severe and longer than mine, mirrors my own journey in many ways.
I was so desperately hoping that his death had been a natural one. Losing consciousness after an unexpected heart attack, being in the unfortunate position of it happening in a hot tub. I was praying for the autopsy to reveal that he was clean at his moment of death; that he didn’t succumb to the devil once again. But it was ketamine. As far as I could understand of the reports, it happened to be exactly what I had feared. Not a painkiller, not a benzo, not alcohol; but still. Not a natural death. He seemed to be, once again, in the grips of a substance.
He had desired love so badly. He was fantastic with children; in the book, he mentions multiple times just how badly he wanted to be a father one day. As a man – as a clean and sober man – that dream might have still been realized. He was a huge source of inspiration in my first year of being sober. If he could do it, so can I. And also, from the other side – If I could find love, a life partner, a wife, a committed relationship, a soft place to fall, so could he.
We are all in the same boat. Trying to find meaning in a life devoid of our substance of choice. Wrangling with religion, hoping to find our way to God. Constantly repeating the words of the serenity prayer, desperately hoping for those words to reach our heart and soul, and guide us to the right path.
Matthew Perry’s story is the perfect depiction of what a life in the depths of the pit can be. The devastating truth that it’s never completely over. The hope that it can get better. The prayer which finally finds its way to God, but still not saving us at the end. Regardless of he was sober or not – his contribution to all of us has been a lifeline. At least for me. His book, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is one of the most important books I have ever read, and I will keep re-reading it year after year. I’ve decided to re-read it at least once a year, every year around the time of my “birthday”. He was magical.
Will it ever be over for me?
In my darkest hours, the thought that sometimes keeps me going and holding on, is the idea of ending my life in an overdose. For the last thing I experience in this life being the ecstatic, exhilarating tranquility and peace that flows through my veins after around the tenth pill I swallow. I can’t get this image out of my mind – drowning in the silence, the peace, the blissful sense of everything is perfect as it is in this very moment.
And yet, I know that will never be my destiny. Regardless of how soothing these ideations can get, the story of Matthew Perry’s life journey is a picture I hold on to when I think about how to live a fulfilled, pill-free life. If I think of his struggle, I can feel how my life could still play out if I don’t make the conscious decision to find another way. I desperately want to write a different story for myself.
I want to be an inspiration while I’m still alive.
I want to be a 90-year-old, wrinkled old lady, falling asleep peacefully, forever, having lived a fulfilled, rich, gratifying life. I can never turn to benzos again to find the peace I’m craving; I have to find it with a clear, conscious, deliciously awake mind and soul. I work for this possibility every single day of my young life.
He is not an inspiration for how I don’t want my life to turn out – he is way more than that. He is a brother whose eternal struggle reminds me of my own. He is a warrior who lost the final battle, but still lived through an incredibly rich life. I so badly want to find a relationship with the divine the way he did; his words about his journey to God make me weep every single time I read them. No matter how excruciating his pain was, he still found the light, venturing again and again back into the darkness.
But he did find the light. That is all that matters to me. That is why he will always be the most inspiring example of heroic perseverance, in the midst of an incurable, all-consuming disease. There are only a handful of famous faces that might have had the power to make me feel “starstruck”. He is definitely one of them.
His example simply makes me want to hold on, and never give up the fight.
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