I can sympathize with you. I drank and took painkillers as well. I used to go to work at my old job and put them in an old antibiotic bottle and go to the back and pop two at a time. I'd be so high that nothing upset me. Then when I couldn't get vicodin anymore, I tried tramadol, but that did nothing for me. So I turned to booze. I drank before, but now that I didn't have pills, I drank much more. I hid my booze in weird places, like in my bathroom under the towels in the cabinet. I'd go out to eat with friends and I'd be drunk before they even arrived to get me. That is a super hard thing to stop. I've been depressed for as long as I can remember, and this was my way of coping. I'd be at the bar at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, sometimes before work. I finally scared myself enough that I knew I had to stop. I drank so much one night that when I started to come down off of it, my body started shaking, full body tremors, and my heart was going wild. I thought I was going to die. But I just laid back down in bed and said if it's going to happen, let it happen. But I didn't die. And the next day I called the AA hotline. I'm thinking of starting NA too. My family members that I live with have to hide their pain meds from me. That's really bad. Taking one vicodin now hardly phases me. I need to take higher dosages for it to affect me. I know how it feels to self medicate with alcohol and drugs.