After snorting about 25 lines of methamphetamine in 76 hours, Rick Fey's years of drug addiction caught up to him in the form of his third drug overdose.
"I dropped to the floor and stopped breathing," Fey says of his last overdose at 25 years old. "I had gotten to the point in my life where it was not uncommon for me to stay up 20 to 40 hours doing line after line."
It was in the ambulance 18 years ago after being brought back to life with defibrillator paddles that Fey, now 43, says he decided to change his lifestyle and get off drugs.
"I realized I had been given a gift by still being alive, and it was time to celebrate that life instead of trying to destroy it," Fey says.
Fey is now a lecturer in the ASU Sociology Department, a single father of three and a sociology doctorate who teaches 900 to 1,400 students in four to five classes each term. Fey, a self-described "product of a gas jockey and a former actress" from Fullerton, Calif., says he loves teaching and hopes his story will keep at least one person from making his mistakes.
"If it helps students to realize that hard recreational drug use is a dead end, then I don't mind," Fey says.
Fey journeyed from dropping out of high school, overdosing on drugs three times, divorcing twice and prospecting with a major outlaw motorcycle gang, to graduating with a double major from Portland State University and teaching at ASU with his doctorate in sociology. He says never quitting has been the mantra that has got him to where he is today.
Fey has an overall RateMyProfessor.com rating of 4.7 out of five. A Facebook.com group is dedicated to his sociology class; it had 121 members late Monday.
Cheseree Gaston, a political science and African American studies freshman, says Fey's lectures apply to her daily life.
"He's really inspiring — he was homeless, and he's a single parent like my mother," Gaston says. "I like the fact that he rose up above the odds and he still is a successful and enlightened individual."
Being open with his students about his past has helped him to better connect with them, Fey says.
"I live my life by the very same principles that I teach," Fey says.
Fey says he got in a dispute with his parents when he was a young teen, and he chose to leave rather then stay at home. He has since turned the animosity into a working and respectful relationship.
"I have a great relationship with them now," Fey says.
Being homeless at 13 after leaving his family solidified his will to survive, Fey says.
"You're sitting in a little tree house, freezing cold, in the dead of winter, with barely a blanket to keep you warm and no food, and it's Christmas Eve. You learn how to survive," Fey says. "If you can survive that, you can survive anything."
As a teen, he worked construction jobs and acted in the local theater in Washington. During this time he alternated between living on the streets, with friends and in a shack owned by his theater troupes.
It was during his teen years that drugs became a big part of his life, Fey says.
"I got more involved with pot, drugs, a little bit of coke," Fey says.
Fey went on to overdose on drugs three times in 10 years, starting at age 15 after dropping out of high school. At 18, he passed a General Education Development test, the equivalent of a high school diploma. He wouldn't go back to school until nine years later, getting heavily involved with drugs along the way.
While doing drugs, Fey became a prospect for a motorcycle gang in Washington, the "Bandidos."
"After being involved with [The Bandidos] for about nine months, I realized it was a dead end because of the sheer number of illegal activities they were involved in," Fey says. "I just realized I didn't need a gang behind me to give me an identity."
Fey says he would rather not discuss the details of involvement with the Bandidos. An avid motorcycle lover, Fey says he rode independently of any organization after he stopped prospecting.
"I made a lot of bad choices, given the world I had grown up in," Fey says. "I started getting into hard shit — coke, crank, anything I could find. Those were my two preferences.
"[Drugs] had become a dominant part of my life to the point where eventually an overdose or some other [fatal] accident was inevitable." It was only after his third overdose that Fey quit drugs, Fey says.
"Think about it this way: how many old drug users do you know?" he says.
After his third overdose, Fey says he avoided drugs and started college.
In 2000, Fey graduated from Portland State University with his master's degree in sociology, after getting bachelor's degrees in sociology and psychology. He went on to get his doctorate in sociology at ASU.
"I found a niche in sociology," Fey says. "I always had an analytical and curious mind, [and] sociology gives me the framework to pursue a greater understanding of the world."
Grant Farr, the Associate Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at PSU, and the former chair of the sociology program, says he remembers Fey as a hardworking, mature student.
"He was really focused. He knew what he wanted to do and worked at it," Farr says. "He was responsible — [the] kind of a person that really understood how to deal with people."
Fey would later use these communication skills to become a well-respected teacher. Now, Fey's story and work ethic are an inspiration to his students.
Last week, a student told Fey that his lecture that day made him reconsider dropping out of ASU. Fey says moments like these are the reason why he finds teaching so rewarding.
"You can't preach it if you don't live it," Fey says.
By sharing his story of redemption, Fey says he hopes to inspire his students to work hard and think for themselves.
"Sharing my story is not to glorify my life, or to minimize it, or to create some sob story, but just to illustrate that no matter what curves life throws at you, if you never quit, you can do anything," Fey says.
