About the Episode

Because Matthew Perry is still very much on my mind. Because I am still not sure why he died. Only know that they found him unresponsive in a Jacuzzi. Don’t know what he did before he climbed into the tub. Don’t know whether helped any alcohol or any other substance to climb into his capillaries. I don’t know what I don’t know. And maybe when I do I’ll stop thinking about Matthew Perry. But for some reason I don’t think I ever well. A long time ago, I lay awake for hours, terrified that they would be my last ones on earth. The sentiment of Patti Davis daughter of Nancy Davis better known as Nancy Reagan. The Reagans’ daughter Patty says she committed to quitting cocaine, was devoted to “cleaning up and getting healthy.” She writes, “But then a friend called who I had routinely done coke with and who always had a supply of the drug. Earlier on that black night, I’d careened backward into the familiar land of white lines on a mirror and a heart racing way too fast. It was pounding so hard, so fast, so loud, I was certain it and I couldn’t survive.

I saw the fact that I did survive as somewhat of a miracle. It would be a nice, clean story if I said I never did drugs again. But addiction is never nice and clean. I did go back to trying to clean up my life, and truthfully I backslid only a couple of times after that — and never as severely as on the night I thought might be my last.

I don’t think back on those days too often, but with Matthew Perry’s death, the memories have coiled around me because of how honest he was about his own addiction. I want to tell you something about addiction: No matter who it is or what substance that person is hooked on, loneliness is at its root. For whatever reason — and I have no theory as to why — there are those of us who feel isolated in this world, as if everyone else had some secret formula for getting along, for fitting in, and no one ever let us in on it. That loneliness resides deep inside us, at our core, and no matter how many people try to help us, no matter how many friends reach out, support us, show up for us, it never entirely goes away. It’s vast and shadowy and also part of who we are. Something happens when we discover a drug or alcohol: Suddenly we have a companion holding our hand, propping us up, making us feel we fit in, we can be part of the club. It’s there for us in the empty hours when it seems no one else is.” Patty Davis, the daughter of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, this week in the New York Times.