Maybe you were aware of how bad things had gotten for dear Matthew Perry, AKA Chandler Bing of Friends. Not me. In the memoir that’s been making headlines these past couple weeks, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Perry details a harrowing history of addiction — 14 trips to rehab, 60 some odd detoxes, 15 stomach surgeries — the kind that makes you marvel that he’s still alive. It’s a transfixing and tragic tale, and who knows if it’s over. One can only pray.
About midway through, Perry recounts what he considers his ‘bottom,’ and, well, it left me gaping. Unsure if it’s made more poignant or less by the fact that it’s impossible to read without Chandler’s iconic 90s sarcasm doing the narration.
The context is that Matthew couldn’t sleep because of a painful detox and took eight Xanax, an amount that was likely to kill him if he didn’t get a dose of anti-seizure medication, immediately. At the outset of the passage he’s waiting for an assistant to arrive with those pills in tow, ht CG:
I hated myself.
This was a new bottom; I didn’t think you could get any lower than my previous bottom, but I had managed to do it. And all of this in front of my father, who was obviously terrified. The cunning, baffling, powerful nature of addiction had gotten me one more time.
The front door still wasn’t opening. This was serious trouble. I was a desperate man. The drugs were in full flow, the drinking, too. Things were so bad I couldn’t even cry. To cry might have signaled that there was at least a semblance of the normal somewhere abouts, but there was nothing natural about any of this.
So, a bottom — the lowest point of my life. This is a classic moment for an addict, a moment after which one seeks lasting help … But hey, what’s this now? As I sat there looking into the kitchen, I noticed a crinkle in the atmosphere. Perhaps someone not at their bottom might have waved it away as nothing, but to me it was so compelling that I couldn’t look away. It resembled a kind of little wave in the air. I had never seen anything like it before in my life. It was real, true, tangible, concrete. Is this what you see at the end? Was I dying? And then …
I frantically began to pray — with the desperation of a drowning man. The last time I’d prayed, right before I’d gotten Friends, I’d managed only to strike a Faustian bargain with a God who had simply drawn a long breath and bided his damn time. Here I was, more than a decade later, chancing my praying arm once again.
“God, please help me,” I whispered. “Show me that you are here. God, please help me.”
As I prayed, the little wave in the air transformed into a small, golden light. As I kneeled, the light slowly began to get bigger, and bigger, until, until it was so big that it encompassed the entire room. It was like I was standing on the sun. I had stepped on the surface of the sun. What was happening? And why was I starting to feel better? And why was I not terrified? The light engendered a feeling more perfect than the most perfect quantity of drugs I had ever taken. Feeling euphoric now, I did get scared and tried to shake it off. But there was no shaking this off. It was way way bigger than me. My only choice was to surrender to it, which was not hard, because it felt so good. The euphoria had begun at the top of my head and slowly seeped down throughout my entire body — I must have sat there for five, six, seven minutes, filled with it.
My blood hadn’t been replaced with warm honey. I was warm honey. And for the first time in my life, I was in the presence of love and acceptance and filled with an overwhelming feeling that everything was going to be OK. I knew now that my prayer had been answered. I was in the presence of God. Bill Wilson, who created AA, was saved by a lightning-bolt-through-the-window experience where he felt he was meeting God.
This was mine. […]
After about seven minutes (insert “seven minutes in heaven” joke here) the light began to dim. The euphoria died down. God had done his work and was off helping someone else now.
I started to cry. I mean, I really started to cry — that shoulder-shaking kind of uncontrollable weeping. I wasn’t crying because I was sad. I was crying because for the first time in my life, I felt OK. I felt safe, taken care of. Decades of struggling with God, and wrestling with life, and sadness, all was being washed away, like a river of pain gone into oblivion.
I had been in the presence of God. I was certain of it. And this time I had prayed for the right thing: help.
Eventually the weeping subsided. But everything was different now. I could see color differently, angles were of a different magnitude, the walls were stronger, the ceiling higher, the trees tapping on the windows more perfect than ever, their roots connected via the soil to the planet and back into me — one great connection created by an ever-loving God — and beyond, a sky, which had before been theoretically infinite was now unknowably endless. I was connected to the universe in a way I had never been. Even the plants in my house, which I had never even noticed before, seemed in sharp focus, more lovely than it was possible to me, more perfect, more alive.
I stayed sober for two years based solely on that moment. God had shown me a sliver of what life could be. He had saved me that day, and for all days, no matter what. He had turned me into a seeker, not only of sobriety, and truth, but also of him. […]
Nowadays, when a particular darkness hits me, I find myself wondering if it was just Xanax insanity, a continuation of the snake I had been sure was about to show up – the drug can cause what the National Institutes of Health describe as “reversible brief psychotic episodes.” […] But quickly I return to the truth of the golden light. When I am sober, I can still see it, remember what it did for me. Some might write it off as a near-death experience, but I was there, and it was God. And when I am connected, God shows me that it was real, little hints like when the sunlight hits the ocean and turns it into that beautiful golden color. Or the reflection of sunlight on the green leaves of a tree, or when I see the light return to someone’s eyes when they come out of the darkness into sobriety. And I feel it when I help someone get sober, the way it hits my heart when they say thank you. Because they don’t know yet that I should really be thanking them.
Well, thank you, Matthew, for relaying those minutes of endless sunlight to us — and the prayer that preceded them. It takes guts to wrangle warm honey into words, to brave the risk of embarrassment and triteness and the voice of the persecutor within. You can’t contrive the authenticity of someone with nothing left to lose. A strange blessing, to be sure, but a supremely hopeful one.
What Matthew describes doesn’t sound to these ears like an epiphany or breakthrough. Nor does it sound like a ‘God-concept’ being expanded or recalibrated, some fresh idea being taken on board. No, it sounds like an emotional encounter with the God of the universe. A God who exudes pure grace toward a man consumed by self-destruction. “All was being washed away, like a river of pain gone into oblivion.” Praise the Lord.
By his own account, this experience thrust Matthew deeper into reality rather than away from it. If not healing him fully (or dispelling the uncertainty of what comes next) then certainly pointing toward that possibility. His moment in the sun engendered a contagious sort of gratitude and an eagerness to serve fellow sufferers.
Which is to say, despite the hellish days, weeks, months, years, maybe someone was there for the guy after all.
COMMENTS
15 responses to “The One Where Matthew Perry Met God”
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What wondrous love is this!
Almost 60 years ago my mom, after divorce from my dad, was so depressed and overwhelmed to be alone caring for 4 children she turned to drink and despaired of life. At her lowest a great light illuminated her bedroom and enveloped her, giving her the strength to live on.
I love how you proclaim the Gospel.
And yet not one mention of Jesus or salvation? This is most likely not a true encounter with the true God, but as Matthew even admits – a possible psychotic episode.
Examine the fruit of this “salvation” experience – a greater oneness with nature! This is not the gospel, but quite opposite – the anti-gospel the new age promotes. The fake gospel always omits the concept of two-ness that God himself explains as reality in His Word. God is distinct from man, and Jesus is the only method of reconciliation. In other words, Matthew’s “salvation” is really just an enlightenment that he is one with the universe. This is the salvation that the “spirit of the air” promotes. This experience is nowhere near a christian experience, and has no business being referred to by any sort of orthodox christian organization!
What next – Aaron Rodgers and his shaman have the true path to salvation?
Are we really so naive as a Christian culture to accept that any time someone calls out “God” that it is really Him who answers? We MUST dig one step deeper to discern if the message one hears is at all in line with the One who has revealed Himself in Scripture! smh….
Matthew take some time to read the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and maybe go to a few Open AA or NA meetings and perhaps you might see his side of the “spiritual experience”
Marcus, I think you underestimate the dimensions of the love that Matthew is describing. God is bigger than Jesus Christ. Not different, just much, much bigger than our limited little human brains can comprehend or imagine.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit, those who admit their need. It sounds like Matthew truly came to the end of himself and God met him there. Much of what he describes sounds like the same God I know. Is his a saving faith? I’ll leave that for others to decide. I do know God gives grace to the humble.
In the spirit of The Who, only love finally reigns over Matthew. Finally surrendered, finally humbled. What wonderous love and grace that God is there when we finally say, help.
[…] the gospel surely has therapeutic effects and an encounter with the living God can, indeed, push a drug addict into recovery or ameliorate one’s inherent anxieties or self-destructive tendencies. The gospel isn’t […]
I don’t think there is another way of knowing God that starts and continues with the admission powerlessness like what Matthew Perry describes. Whether this experience is also his personal conversion to faith in Christ may not be clear, but I think the story he tells is right in line with the Gospel as are countless stories of people finding recovery in addiction.
Marcus is right to be concerned about Matthew’s experience. If he did not encounter the eternal Son of God, then this experience could leave him worse off than before—thinking all is well because he now feels better. Satan can appear as an angel of light; sadly, that’s the likely explanation. Let’s pray that Matthew Perry comes to know the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. All is not yet lost… this event could lead to true salvation for him!
Marcus and Jeff, I’m not certain of much in this life, but I know Jesus Christ knows and deeply loves Matthew. Our human understanding of their mutual relationship is just that, human. God’s grace will prevail regardless of how we might label Matthew’s salvation status.
[…] The One Where Matthew Perry Met God, by David Zahl […]
Marcus,
I am a believer and had a very similar experience to Matthew, before my decision to truly surrender and reach out for help. God showed up in a way I had always wanted, and has continued to show up since then. It is not for me, you, or us to judge the validity of one’s experience with the living God. I do know that God is in the rooms of AA. I see it often. I have seen atheists come to faith in the rooms, I have seen healing in the rooms. And there is not judgment. It is comments like these and the anger behind your comments that are not of Christ that are examples of why so many folks in addiction and recovery from addiction have felt so stigmatized by the one place where there should be healing (not judgment and rebuke). So, my advice to you is to not be so quick to judge something you seem to know little about.
And now, here comes the retort which will involve parsing of my words….
I know the curators of this site specialize in grace, so by all means illuminate my understanding if it be too narrow! God’s grace is the greatest gift, the greatest force, and the greatest method for authentic change in spiritual living. I by no means intend to diminish the concept, only to make it greater in my life and the lives of those around me.
However, as I see grace in this instance expressed toward Matthew in this article by God, it would fall into the category of prevenient grace. That is the grace extended to all humanity through life itself, and the opportunity to go toward God. This grace allows evil to work as well. It allows the devil to function, it allowed Hitler to live as long as he did, it allows the lies of the reality of Christ crucified and resurrected as a direct provision for one’s personal salvation to live as scales on the eyes of the lost.
It seems related to me with the concepts of general revelation and specific revelation. General revelation is the evidence of the existence of God that all humanity can witness. From the vastness of the universe to the miracle of the cell. Everyone on earth is left without excuse to not pursue the reality of a creator God. Specific revelation is God’s specific effort to reveal himself to humanity through Abraham, the Israelites, Jesus, and Paul. It is through specific revelation (as recorded in the Bible) that we have received more details about God’s plan for humanity. His provision of Christ as our substitutionary sacrifice and uniquely qualified provider of reconciliation with the Creator, for now and eternity.
Particularly in light of Christianity today, I think it is important to maintain clarity on the definition of terms. Sin, love, grace, Jesus, God, are all subject to subjective uses. “Sin is a man-made construct.” “Love is a feeling.” “Grace means everyone goes to heaven.” “Jesus was a good teacher.” “God is an inanimate force.” These are all the prevailing winds of our culture, and not at all what is explained in God’s Specific Revelation.
That is why I would agree, that Matthew did in fact experience a dose of God’s grace, but not the kind that is specifically required for salvation. He experienced the same type of grace that grants life to all. That gives the senses. That gives the capacity to appreciate beauty. The same grace that allows pain and suffering, and injustice in the world.
This is why I feel that, theologically, it is inappropriate to categorize Matthew’s experience in terms with which the world would whole-heartedly agree. Terms that promote salvation apart from the ultimate source of grace – Jesus Christ.
I do pray that Matthew’s experience with light and his new lease on life would lead to his specific salvation with Jesus. Unfortunately, my point is, there is no evidence of that in this article. To gloss over this critical detail only serves to lead people in the broad path.
Thank you for your comment, Marcus. You had to know it wouldn’t be a popular one, but the reason I follow Mockingbird is that it’s for all comers, —- especially naysayers, provocateurs, independent thinkers, creative thinkers and wrong thinkers , so I’m glad you posted. (Even though I’m reading this waaay after the fact)
That being said, I believe that we can never really know about another person’s meeting with God or with Jesus. I don’t see Dave’s words as wrapping up Matthew Perry’s salvation in a nice bow, but more as a story about someone’s encounter [possibly!] with the living God. And maybe not.
In any case, I don’t get the sense as you seem to, that people might be led astray by the idea that a drug- induced hallucination is the same thing as a true conversion to Christianity. Of course it’s not, but again, we can’t know. Am I wrong in thinking that’s what you’re saying? So then I wonder why you posted what you posted. And I don’t know if you or anyone will ever even see this, but it’s a conversation I’m sorry I missed.
[…] consideration. The big news, of course, is the death of Friends star Matthew Perry. We profiled a remarkable section of his memoir last year, a masterwork of vulnerability and a window into the mind and spirit of addiction. As Sarah Hepola […]