well good luck but thats the problem with ssri's the side effects are almost just as bad as the depression you have in the first place. if you need to talk to anyone im sure that i and the people in this tribe will be willing to talk to you and help. best of luck

Drinking on Effexor is a very bad idea. People have gotten them self's in big trouble doing that.

I'm reading this almost 2 years later, but I'm curious to see how you are doing? I was on Effexor for years, a few years ago and I had a hellish time coming off of it. In fact, I was not able to. I'm in the healthcare profession, so I have access to journal articles and such, so I did my own research. I found a hot-off-the-press journal article examining the so called "discontinuation syndrome." Why don't they just call it what it really is: withdrawal? Anyhow, this article noted 5 or so case studies of research done by a psychiatrist and he noted that because Effexor and Paxil have such short half-lives, they they are more likely to cause the "withdrawal." So while tapering the Effexor, he replaced it with a 5 day course of Prozac as its half-life is much longer and this managed to decrease and/or prevent the withdrawal in his patients.

Anyhow, I brought the article to my doctor and she prescribed me a 5-day course and I was able to come off of Effexor and switch to Serzone with ZERO problems! She has used this with many other patients and has passed the info along to her colleagues. She often used to thank me and tell about all of the people she was able to help.

Now the discontinuation syndrome is well documented (it was not even on the radar back then) and I believe many docs that know their pharmacotherapy use this approach as well as adding a benzodiazepine for 1 week during the transition.