If I was in your shoes I would say that I used because I was willing to go to any length to escape my feelings, even if it meant that I risked death in order to escape from real life.
Recovery isn't abstinence. To be sure, recovery is impossible without abstinence, so we stay clean one day at a time.
Then we are faced with the dilemma that we have no idea how to live or deal with our feelings. Learning how to do that with help is recovery.