Matthew Perry Says He Spent $9 Million to Get Sober

Matthew Perry is sharing more about the cost of his addiction battle.

The Friends actor, in an interview with The New York Times published Oct. 23, said by the time he was 49 years old, he had spent a large part of his life in rehab facilities, estimating, “I’ve probably spent $9 million or something trying to get sober.”

Perry—whose memoir Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing recounts his decades long struggle with addiction—shared his early forays with substances, from drinking Budweiser and Andrès Baby Duck wine at 14 years old before expanding to Vodka and drugs like Vicodin, Xanax and OxyContin as he got older.

“I would fake back injuries. I would fake migraine headaches. I had eight doctors going at the same time,” Perry noted. “I would wake up and have to get 55 Vicodin that day, and figure out how to do it. When you’re a drug addict, it’s all math. I go to this place, and I need to take three. And then I go to this place, and I’m going to take five because I’m going to be there longer. It’s exhausting but you have to do it or you get very, very sick.”