MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — For the first time since drug abuse cost him his radio career, former KFAN personality Jeff Dubay is speaking out.

Dubay was part of the PA and Dubay show on KFAN for 10 years. But in 2008, he was arrested for having crack-cocaine.

After failing to stay clean, he was eventually fired.

On Wednesday, for the first time, he spoke out on Chad Hartman’s show on WCCO Radio.

“Wow, that’s the first time I’ve heard my voice in headphones in three years,” said Dubay after beginning the show with Hartman.

[Click here for the full Jeff Dubay Interview]

It was a moment Jeff Dubay had thought about. And one he thought may never happen again.

“For 10 years I led an easy and fun of an existence as a human being should ever be afforded,” said Dubay during the interview. “I had a blast.”

As the co-host of the PA and Dubay show on KFAN, ratings were great and life was even better. But things changed when he went through a difficult divorce.

It shook him so badly, that at a party in St. Paul one night he did something he never thought he’d do.

“When somebody brought this out and set it on the table, I’d never seen this before,” Dubay said. “It’s these chunky, little white things. I thought, ‘What the heck is it?’ The guy said, ‘It’s rock.’ I still didn’t know what it was. I still didn’t know it was crack cocaine.”

The drug was a break from the depression, but it quickly became a habit.

“You took the drug and then the drug took you,” he said. “And that’s all it took. I was done for the next two years.”

In October 2008, while driving home after buying crack, an officer started pulling Dubay over for a broken taillight.

Dubay panicked and threw the drugs out the window. But officers found them.

“I was crying, saying, ‘My life is over.’ Please don’t. Just please give me a break,’” he recalled.

The former sports talk show co-host was charged with fifth-degree possession — a felony.

Dubay claims he was never high on air, but after not being able to stay clean, he was fired from KFAN.

It took two years before he says he finally broke the habit by locking himself in his bedroom for months.

“There are no drug dealers in my closet,” he said. “There’s no stash under my bed. I’m locking the door and I’m getting sober.”

After his interview with Chad Hartman, WCCO talked with Dubay about being back on the radio, something he admits he was nervous about.

But his No. 1 goal is to keep others from choosing the path he chose.

“That’s what I want to do right now,” he said. “That’s what I want to do right now. And if the opportunity to get back into radio came up at some point, I would love it. I would love it. Right now I have to take care of these things.”

Dubay said he has been clean since March of last year.

He was sent to the workhouse three times, and because he has a felony on his record, work has been tough to come by.

He wants people to e-mail him if they are thinking about using drugs, because he believes he can talk them out of it. His email address is: jdubay68@gmail.com

Dubay said he received more than 50 emails in the minutes following his interview with Chad Hartman.