I self medicated for depression with drugs and alcohol for 17 years. The problem is it actually works for awhile. I was able to function and cope with life with drugs. Of course i was just burying everything under the drugs. As you can imagine it didn't end well. I got clean and sober. Imagining life without it was the scariest thing I could imagine. You can do it. You are aware it is a problem and you are starting to reach out for help. There is effective treatment for depression. Hard to sort out when you are still using. Get sober first and seek help for depression if you have it.

I had never heard of Tramadol. About three years ago I was having a lot of back pain and a buddy of mine gave me like 60 or 90 of them. I thought they were non narcotic and safe when i looked it up. Well I found out you could get high and I liked it. Then I stopped taking them and I had horrible withdrawal. I didn't even know I was having withdrawal as I didn't know Tramadol could cause it. Anxiety like crawling out of my skin horrible withdrawal. I went through it cold turkey not even knowing what it was. You could say I relapsed...I dunno. I call it a slip or just a dumb move because I thought it was a safe drug. I would say get medical help from someone who knows about addiction and withdrawal. They could probably give you a benzo temporarily to get through the withdrawal.

When the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of changing, we will change.