Matthew Perry, the US actor famously known for his role as Chandler in the sitcom Friends, has revealed how he experienced a breakthrough in his battle with alcohol addiction after a prayer. 

He said: "God, please help me," according to his new biography. "Show me that you are here. God, please help me..." 

"I started to cry. I mean, I really started to cry - that shoulder-shaking kind of uncontrollable weeping. I wasn't crying because I was sad. I was crying because for the first time in my life, I felt okay. I felt safe, taken care of. Decades of struggling with God, and wrestling with life and sadness, all was being washed away, like a river of pain gone into oblivion.

"I had been in the presence of God. I was certain of it. And this time I had prayed for the right thing: help," he continued. 

Perry's first ever prayer request was for God to make him famous, he also revealed in his book. 

"I look back at it as a dumb prayer, like a prayer of like a really young person," he recently told US presenter Diane Sawyer. 

The 53-year-old's new biography explores his journey to sobriety and the way his parent's divorce led him to start drinking at the age of 14. 

He shared he went to rehab on 15 different occasions and gave insight into his struggles with the addiction whilst filming Friends. 

Perry says he stayed sober for two years based "solely" on that encounter with God. 

"God had shown me a sliver of what life could be. He save me that day, and for all days, no matter what. He had turned me into a seeker, not only of sobriety, and truth, but also of him."

Perry has previously been described as "non-religious".