while the withdrawal i recently went thru was hell effexor xr did help when i was on it. i could only tolerate 75 mg, any more and i was a zombie, so it wasn't that much help but it was the only AD i tried that did work at all. i must have tried about 10 other ADs. i only stayed on eff xr for so long (7 years) because i knew it was supposed to be so hard to get off. considering the relief i got while on it was minimal it really wasn't worth the hellacious withdrawal. i think pristiq is supposed to be a newer, better version of effexor so you might want to ask your doc about that instead. i think i heard someone around here say it doesn't have as bad a withdrawal or side effects or something like that.