We all liked his funny, lovely character in friends, but i didn't know that he was going through such terrible thing as addiction. Through the whole book, i was asking a sole question: Why couldn't he stop? He is not a suicidal personality. He has money and fame. How come he couldn't manage to tame his desires and stop. About the end of the book, Mathew gave me 2 lines to think about. When you get addicted to something, you are missing with your receptive nerves. All that we all seek in life is to feel good. It is enough for normals to feel content and good when just listening to a lovely song. But for addicts with damaged receptives, it becomes harder to simply feel good, so they double the dose to just feel normal good. Addiction is a real mind disease, not just a desire control. I believe the first step to curing such diseases is to acknowledge defeat against it and seek true help. I dont know how much time your receptive nerves need to recover or how far damage can be reversible, but i believe there should be more studies to help addicts get sober in a more effective way. By this, science can once more save many of our lives.