“We were always proud of him”

It's been a year since Friends star Matthew Perry was found lifeless in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home. He died on October 28, 2023, after spending an afternoon playing pickleball and retreating to his home overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

His loved ones, who witnessed his drug and alcohol abuse for years, were heartbroken by what his mother later described as an inevitable outcome.

“What was going to happen next to him was inevitable,” Suzanne Perry told the TODAY show's Savannah Guthrie.

His mother spoke about processing her grief and broke down in tears as she talked about how powerless one can feel in the face of a loved one's addiction problems.

“You have to stop blaming yourself because it’s tearing you apart,” she said.

Perry was best known for his role as one of the leads on NBC's hit 1990s sitcom Friends. He played Chandler Bing, a statistical analyst whose sarcasm and one-liners quickly made him a Gen X favorite.

The series was a blockbuster for ten seasons, from 1994 to 2004.

In 2022, Perry released his memoir “Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing: A Memoir” and revealed details about his addiction. That included a near-death experience in 2019 after his colon ruptured as a result of opioid use. In total, he spent about $7 million on rehabilitation and recovery efforts, Perry wrote in the book.

“What he taught the world is that no amount of money can cure an addict,” said Perry's stepfather, “Dateline” correspondent Keith Morrison.

Two months after his death, the Los Angeles County coroner's office said Perry died from the acute effects of ketamine. His death was ruled an accident. Other factors included drowning, coronary artery disease and the effects of buprenorphine, which is used to treat opioid use disorder.

Ketamine has long been known as a club drug and is increasingly being used to treat people with depression and other mental health issues. However, it poses serious medical risks and can be fatal if misused. Perry had undergone ketamine infusion therapy to treat his depression and anxiety, but his last session occurred more than a week before his death, according to the coroner's office.

The level of ketamine in his body was equivalent to the amount used for general anesthesia during surgery, the coroner said.

Federal prosecutors in August announced charges against five people in connection with Perry's death. Two doctors, a live-in personal assistant, an acquaintance and a drug dealer known as the “Ketamine Queen” are said to have conspired to supply the actor with the ketamine that caused his death. (Three of those people, including a doctor who ran a ketamine clinic, have pleaded guilty. Another doctor has pleaded not guilty, along with the “Ketamine Queen.”)

According to federal prosecutors, doctors provided him with about 20 vials of ketamine for $55,000 in cash from September until Perry's death in late October last year.

“We didn’t know how much he was making,” Keith Morrison said.

In the months before his death, Perry appeared to have turned his addiction around, relatives said. He reconnected with old friends, spoke openly about his spirituality, and shared tender moments with family members he had once avoided.

His younger sisters remember Perry constantly cracking jokes and making people laugh when they were young. “There was always a feeling of joy when he came by,” his sister Caitlin Morrison recalled. “He just wanted to love and be loved,” added Emily Morrison, another sister.

Now loved ones shift tense from past to present and back to the past as they remember the complicated man who brought them so much joy.

Caitlin Morrison was instrumental in establishing the Matthew Perry Foundation and an inpatient facility. Its goal, according to the foundation's website, is to help break the stigma surrounding addictions, promote collaboration between communities and advocate for better treatment.

“Even when he struggled in dark times, we were always proud of him,” Caitlin Morrison said. “We were always proud that he continued to fight and made helping other people a big focus of his life.”

Part of its mission is to make it easier for families to talk about addiction and treat it like a disease rather than a moral failing.

It's a familiar story for the millions of people whose loved ones suffer from a substance use disorder and a guiding principle for the foundation, the family said.

Suzanne Perry recalled how she and her son had a strained relationship over the years, but in the end Matthew Perry softened and the two shared loving moments in his final months.

“I'm a very happy woman,” Suzanne said, referring to Caitlin Morrison's work with the foundation and the successes of her other children. “But there was a mistake, there was a problem I couldn’t solve: I couldn’t help him.”