Matthew Perry on his brush with death: 'I had a 2% chance of survival'

Matthew Perry has revealed that he was close to death after a rupture in his colon left him with a 2% chance of survival.

In November, the actor will release his memoir, Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.

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In it, he shares candid stories about his battles with drug and alcohol addiction, with a particular focus on his time in Friends.

In an interview with People Magazine to promote his memoir, he recalled how close he came to dying a few years ago.

"The doctors told my family that I had a 2 per cent chance to live," he said.

"I was put on a thing called an ECMO machine, which does all the breathing for your heart and your lungs. And that's called a Hail Mary. No one survives that.

"There were five people put on an ECMO machine that night and the other four died and I survived. So the big question is why? Why was I the one? There has to be some kind of reason."

Perry sober for only one season of Friends

Perry's addiction was on alcohol and Oxycontin, an opioid pain relief medication. It was his dependence on the latter that ultimately led to the perforation of his colon and his hospitalisation.

As for alcohol, he says he was sober for only one season of Friends,

"I could handle it, kind of," he said of when he first started drinking in the early days of the show.

"But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble.

"But there were years that I was sober during that time. Season 9 was the year that I was sober the whole way through. And guess which season I got nominated for best actor? I was like, 'That should tell me something.'"