After struggling to fall asleep on Saturday night, Shaun Hedden did what many people do on insomnia-riddled evenings: he put on Friends.

Mr Hedden, 41, grew up watching the show. He developed a particular fondness for Matthew Perry, both for his comic timing and their shared experience with

substance use addiction. Perry’s shock death at 54 devastated him.

“I really wanted the chance to go to a book signing and shake his hand and thank him because his book definitely kept me sober,” Mr Hedden told The Independent.

For two decades, Perry spoke openly about his experiences with substance use disorder, and worked to help others looking to recover. Since his death, a viral mishmash of quotes from Perry has been shared online amongst fans, showing his hopes that he’d be remembered more for his work combating the stigma of addiction than for his role on Friends.

“I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my life and a lot of wonderful accolades,” Perry said in a 2015 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, “but the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic comes up to me and says, ‘Will you help me stop drinking?’ I will say, ‘Yes. I know how to do that.’ ”

His brutally honest 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, detailed his sobriety and relapses with substance abuse.

“I wanted to share when I was safe from going into the dark side of everything again,” Perry told People ahead of the book’s release. “And the main thing was, I was pretty certain that it would help people.”

And it did.

Mr Hedden, who has been sober since 2006, said that around this time last year, he was going through a “rough stretch” of his recovery when he decided to pick up Perry’s memoir and read it in one sitting.