'Friends' star shares Matthew Perry's crucial role in his path to sobriety

Matthew Perry has left a lasting impact on lives of millions of people around the world with his incredible portrayal of Chandler Bing in the hit comedy sitcom, Friends.

While Perry was helping people by making them laugh with his work, he was also helping his friends with their additions while also struggling with his own.

Following his untimely death at 54, his Friends co-star Hank Azaria, who played the role of David, the love interest of Phoebe Buffay, portrayed by Lisa Kudow, took to Instagram to pay Perry a tribute.

In an Instagram video, he said, “Matthew and I became really good friends — we were really more like brothers for a long time.”

“We drank a lot together, we laughed a lot together, we were there for each other in the early days of our career,” he said of the time before they starred in Friends.

Revealing how Perry helped him with his addictions, he said, “The night I went into AA, Matthew brought me in,” adding, “The whole first year I was sober, we went to meetings together.”

“I got to tell him this, as a sober person, he was so caring and giving and wise, and he totally helped me get sober. And, I really wish he could’ve found it in himself to stay with the sober life more consistently.”

Azaria admitted that those close to Perry “felt like we lost him to drugs and alcohol a long time ago because, as he documented in his autobiography, there was so much suffering.”

The actor said he had to put down Perry’s memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing multiple times as it was “so painful” reading about his journey to sobriety.

“As his friend who loved him, I knew he must be suffering, but the details of it were just devastating — physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically,” he said.

“It’s heartbreaking for those of us who loved him and knew him really well, personally. We missed him, we just missed him.

“It’s one of the terrible things about this disease, is it just takes away the person you love.”