Friends star Matthew Perry describes battle with alcohol

FRIENDS star Matthew Perry has revealed how he had to leave the set of his new movie Serving Sara to tackle his alcohol problems.

The 33-year-old actor was drinking vodka by the bottle in between filming the project, which also stars British actress Elizabeth Hurley, and suffered hangovers on the set in Dallas, Texas.

He said he never drank while actually working but admitted: "The hangover is brutal. I was sleepy and shaking at work."

Perry speaks candidly about his four-year battle against alcohol and drug abuse in an interview for America's People magazine which hits the streets today.

"I've been through a very dark time," he said, referring to two stints in rehabilitation, in 1997 and last year, and a hospitalisation in the year 2000 for alcohol-related pancreatitis.

Perry admitted he was hooked on a painkiller named Vicodin and was at one point downing what he describes as an "insane number of pills" between 20 and 30 a day.

His problems reached a head during February last year when he was commuting weekly between the Friends set in Los Angeles and the film set for Serving Sara in Dallas and downing vodka by the bottle.

Towards the end of that month, he knew he had to confront his problems and contacted his parents to ask for help.

"I was in fear of losing my life," Perry revealed. "There's a moment of clarity where you have to prioritise your life. I listened to it."

With 13 days of shooting left on the film and Friends still in production, Perry boarded a jet to Los Angeles where his parents drove him to an unnamed rehabilitation centre.

He said: "It was scary. I didn't want to die. But I'm grateful for how bad it got. It only made me more adamant about trying to get better."

Perry said that by the end of his two-and-a-half months of treatment, he had "learned that a happy life is possible without alcohol or drugs".

And he is not bothered by the new film's disappointing opening weekend in the United States where it took just $6.2 million.

"Whether it's successful or not doesn't matter. It's the movie in which my life got better," he said.