Best friends offer life, they don't steal it

​For nearly three decades of my life, alcohol was my best friend. Even when alcohol was no longer my best friend, I wished it was.

There are days I STILL have that wish, which some days makes it hard to have best friends.

A lot of people won't get that, but far more people than you can imagine DO get it.

Matthew Perry got it. I know that because I recently read this in his book 'Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing.'

He said about alcohol, "it took away so much of the pain, including the fact that when I was alone, I was lonely, and that when I was with people, I was lonely, too."

There are lines in people's stories that you read again. The story itself begs you to move along, but you just keep reading that same line - over and over and over again.

I had to pry myself away from that line.

Someone would look at the surface of Perry's life - high profile star on one of the biggest television shows ever, picture after picture of him surrounded by people, and one could wonder, how on earth was he ever lonely?

I mean, he starred in the show Friends - FRIENDS for crying out loud. How does one of the most high profile friends ever suffer from loneliness?

The answer in his case, and in many of our cases, is secrets.

Secrets we bury deep inside, hidden far away from the world. Often we hide them so far away from the world they end up hidden from ourselves.

Loneliness starts as this beautiful accomplice in the hiding until it becomes an unbearable problem.

Then along comes this friend. Alcohol. The friend that wants to know none of your secrets. He's not even curious about them, and even more, he helps you forget that you've ever had any secrets at all.

It's love at first drink.

I'm not here to promote alcohol as friend of the year. Anyone who has known alcohol as a best friend knows alcohol is a jealous and evil friend. It comes disguised as your best friend, yet ultimately desires to leave you in a life without any friends at all.

It's easy to be someone's best friend when you've created a scene in their life where you can be the ONLY friend.

We don't often look at the addict or the drunk or the obsessed - obsessed with many things beyond alcohol, really - and wonder, are they lonely? No, quite often our instinct is judgment long before we are curious enough to wonder, are they lonely?

Matthew Perry would wonder about loneliness. I would. And, the Surgeon General of the United States, Vivek Murthy, he would, too. He recently released a health advisory pointing out that over 50% of people in the US experience measurable levels of loneliness.

And it's killing them, he says. Literally.

Many people will read Perry's book or hear his story on the news and lament that he never got a handle on his addiction. I read it and I hear it and think, his addiction made it very difficult to get a handle on his loneliness.

Even more, I think, it was his addiction conspiring with his secrets. With his burdens. The parts of himself he never found a way to get close enough to someone to share.

So he got close enough to something that always wanted him to feel like you have no need to share. Something like alcohol that always promised, I will guard those secrets for you. I will love you just the way you are.

The things is, none of us feel loved just the way we are if we have to wonder, would I be loved if someone knew just the way I REALLY am?

Too often, we are friends who say that we love people just the way they are without knowing just the way they really are. Too often it's easier, less time consuming, to accept the smile I see as a happy friend and not a smile hiding a lonely friend.

I am challenging you, if you have friends or spouses or co-workers or church small group members, it might be worth your while to ask them, do you ever feel lonely?

We're good at asking 'why do you drink so much' or 'why do you spend so much time buried in your phone' or 'why do you spend so much time at the office', but maybe in some cases, maybe in many cases, it might be more helpful to ask, do you ever feel lonely?

And maybe add, I'm asking because I do. I feel lonely sometimes.

Maybe they will say no. I don't ever feel lonely. And that's OK.

Because maybe someone will say, I do. I do feel lonely. And maybe that will be the conversation that opens the door to the burdens beneath the burden of loneliness.

We have to quit being friends that pressure one another to hide our burdens from one another. We just have to.

Because it's making us lonely and drunk...

and dead.

My heart breaks for Matthew Perry. But I am also thankful he had the chance to share his burdens with us. His REAL burdens.

It wasn't soon enough to save his life, but maybe it was soon enough to help us save each others' lives.

Maybe we can all become best friends with people who offer life, and not best friends with things that steal it.