Matthew Perry Shared His Experience with Ketamine in 2022 Memoir: 'Like Being Hit in the Head with a Giant Happy Shovel'

Mar. 15, 2025

Matthew Perry.Photo:Mike Pont/WireImage

Mike Pont/WireImage

Matthew Perryhad spoken about his experience with ketamine a year before hisdeath.

In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” the actor wrote about using ketamine therapy to treat his depression. Likening its effects to “being hit in the head with a giant happy shovel,” Perry said he enjoyed the drug.

“[It] has my name written all over it — they might as well have called it ‘Matty,’” he wrote, later adding, “Ketamine felt like a giant exhale. They’d bring me into a room, sit me down, put headphones on me so I would listen to music, blindfold me, and put an IV in.”

Perry said the IV contained both Ativan and ketamine, and he would lie down for an hour while he received the drip.

Matthew Perry.Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic

Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic

“I often thought that I was dying during that hour. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘this is what happens when you die,’” he continued. “Yet I would continually sign up for this s— because it was something different, and anything different is good.”

Although he liked its effects, Perry explained that he decided “ketamine was not for me.” The “hangover was rough,” he wrote, adding that he felt “like a f—ing pincushion.”

One year later, Perry died from “acute effects of ketamine” and subsequent drowning

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According to documents, theFriendsstar woke up on October 28, 2023, and asked his assistant,Kenneth Iwamasa, to inject him with ketamine, which is known for its anesthetic and dissociative effects. That same day, he requested a second dose, and then a third, which ultimately killed him.

Five people have been chargedin connection to Perry’s death, including two doctors — Mark Chavez and Salvador Plasencia — who prosecutors alleged in their filing learned of Perry’s want for the drug in September 2023 and upsold him injectable doses.

“I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia allegedly wrote to Chavez, per court documents. Prosecutors claim that Chavez obtained ketamine with a fraudulent prescription, and sold it to Plasencia.

Matthew Perry.David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty

David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty

“In the end, these defendants were more interested in profiting off Mr. Perry than caring for his well being,” United States Attorney Martin Estrada claimed when charges were announced.

In Perry’sPEOPLE cover story in 2022, he opened up about his addiction and revealed that he was no longer using.

“I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side again,” he said at the time. “I had to wait until I was pretty safely sober — and away from the active disease of alcoholism and addiction — to write it all down. I was pretty certain that it would help people if I did.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

source: people.com