Matthew Perry passed away at the age of 54 last year (Image: Getty Images)
A man who got hooked on ketamine like late Hollywood actor Matthew Perry was left urinating blood and unable to walk because of the devastating side effects of the drug.
Peter revealed his friends who had taken the quick-acting anaesthetic had either died or ended up in zimmer frames because of its impact.
The 36-year-old, from the North West England, saw ketamine as a comfort blanket as he dabbled with a cocktail of drugs ranging from ecstasy pills, cocaine and MDMA.
He said he was hit hard when he heard of Matthew Perry’s death a year ago today – the star died aged 54 from “acute effects” of ketamine and other factors which led him to lose consciousness and drown in his hot tub.
Peter said: “The Matthew Perry situation did hit me hard, not only as a big Friends fan but due to the nature of his death. Friends was a big part of my life. Like many people my age, hearing he had passed due to a ketamine overdose was a sobering reminder of what ketamine can do.
He rose to fame on the US sitcom Friends (Image: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
“I read a lot about the situation around his death and I ultimately felt sorry for him as I could fully relate to what he was going through.”
Peter was hooked on ketamine for 14 years and for eight years his usage of the drug was heavy. He would regularly take 10 grammes of ketamine over the weekend.
“It might surprise people but it didn’t impact on my work and I was able to keep these two parts of my life completely separate,” he said. What I was noticing though were the side effects.
“The frequency I was passing water was getting ridiculous, I had almost no control over my bladder. I would frequently have blood in my urine too.
“Other guys who I took ketamine with were not so lucky. Some tragically died, while others have health issues that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. One man my age walks with a zimmer frame, while another has had surgery to remove a large part of his bladder.”
He played the role of Chandler Bing (Image: NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Peter started out experimenting with drugs at the age of 13, Initially he started out smoking cannabis and trying ecstasy and cocaine at 15.
He quit drugs for a while when he was 16 as his then girlfriend, who went on to become his wife, was anti-drugs but when he got to the clubbing scene in Leeds, Manchester and Ibiza that all changed.
Peter said: “I started using ketamine at 18 and this was primarily used late into the night at clubs and afterparties. It really helped with the comedown from other drugs like ecstasy pills, cocaine and MDMA.
“Looking back I would say I was lost. When I was introduced to the clubbing scene it hit me like a tonne of bricks. I felt at home instantly, I loved the music, the people and the drugs. I felt like I belonged somewhere.”
He added: “Ketamine was a comfort blanket that numbed me from emotion. At 18-years-old there wasn’t much for me to hide from, but as life moved on, there were things that happened where I turned to ketamine. One of them being my brother-in-law’s death.”
The actor battled addiction for most of his life (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
Peter also took ketamine as he was told it would stop the comedown from taking the drugs that he was on. He realised a year later that he had a problem – it got so bad that at 23 he got caught doing ketamine at work and was sacked for it.
“It wasn’t long before problems started for me as things were getting out of hand,” he said. “I was pulled over by the police once while driving on ketamine. This was a close call, the police took me to the station and breathlysed me but never carried out a blood test.
“I’d regularly think nothing of driving the next day – or sometimes the same night – when I was taking it as I didn’t feel out of control. I tried stopping, mostly this involved switching to taking cocaine as I was still going out clubbing.”
He remained drug free for his year working in Dubai but that all changed on his return to England and he was back on drugs. The tipping point was when his wife left him in charge of their baby and he took ketamine.
“I took a load of ketamine and when she returned home, she found me passed out on the floor,” he said. “She issued me an ultimatum to clean up or leave. So I checked myself into rehab.”
He died from a fatal dose of ketamine (Image: Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
He ended up going through the doors of the Delamere clinic in Cheshire – the UK’s only purpose-built addiction centre and added: “By the time I arrived at the Delamere clinic I could hardly walk. I count myself incredibly lucky to have stopped when I did.
“I was warned that I may end up with a catheter for the rest of my life, but thankfully my bladder function stabilised and is now normal again. I wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for getting treatment when I did.”
Peter added: “People might think, as it’s a Class B drug, that you can’t get addicted to it, or that it can’t be that harmful. However, I’ve been there, I’ve seen friends die and I know the damage it does. It’s not the fun party drug people think at all.”
Figures reveal ketamine treatment admissions in Britain have increased five-fold since 2014/2015 and now one of Britain’s cheapest drugs.
Dr Catherine Carney, an addiction expert, based at the Delamere clinic, who has been working in the field for more than two decades, said: “Up until 2020, I did not detox one person or treat one person whose primary or sole addiction was ketamine.”
His death has inspired others to get sober (Image: Getty Images)
But she said the situation had changed now and added: “We have a steady number of people coming in, and generally, their only addiction is ketamine.
“In my experience, it’s the people that present with the primary ketamine addiction, it’s always been people in their 20s. I’ve not had anybody over 30.
“These are people in their early 20s. Not always, because there is some reversibility to bladder damage, but once it goes so far, quite often, they’re looking at having a bladder removed.
“And the difficult thing is because the bladder becomes so painful, they try to stop the ketamine because that’s causing the bladder issues, but the only thing that prevents the pain, because ketamine is such an effective anaesthetic, is using the ketamine. So, it’s that vicious cycle.”
She said as ketamine was so cheap now more and more people were getting hooked. “I think the stats for 2005 were that there was 2% of young people that tried ketamine,” she said.
Ketamine has become one of Britain’s cheapest drugs (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
“For 2023, it was about 4%, so it’s doubled in 15 years, and it is because it’s really cheap, £10 a gramme, which is cheaper than cannabis, it’s cheaper than alcohol.
“An average user, and this is a ballpark figure, might be using 30 to 60 milligrammes per hit. So, if one gramme is £10, it’s very cheap.” Dr Carney said the case of Matthew Perry was “extremely tragic.”
She added: “I think he was an example of somebody who’d fought for years and years and years to manage different addictions and had very indecisive sets.
“Obviously, there was some kind of, I think some people were taking significant advantage of him, financial advantage, but it’s not surprising, because people do get sucked into, from one addiction to another addiction.”
