Ask your doctor to put you on 10 mg of prozac. It has a much longer half-life than effexor. Take that with the effexor for about a week or two (however long it takes for the prozac to reach steady state - the pharmacist should be able to tell you), then quit the effexor. You should then be able to taper off the prozac by adding a day between doses (every other day, then every third day, etc.) until such time that you can quit taking that. It's the ONLY way I've ever been able to get off effexor or pristiq. I've tried slowly tapering off for months, and that was miserable. The prozac trick worked and was prescribed by my OB when I was pregnant. I've used it recently to get off pristiq, but I was surprised to learn that my PCP was unaware of it. No brain zaps with the prozac, and it took me about a month or so maybe two - to wean off both completely.