I definitely would recommend following your doctor's orders. If you need it for pain take it. It's when you don't need it anymore that becomes a problem when you take it. I'm not on a high dosage, 1 mg a day for my doctor. Due to other medications I take it's causing a problem. So I had to make a decision whether to stick with my antidepressants or go off Vicodin. It's up to my doctor now to decide if there's another option for pain. As other people have stated I started having kidney problems because of too much ibuprofen. It's not something the doctors thought about or the government when they decided to say opiates are bad. I wish they had! PS all I did was cut it down slowly. The urge will remain for quite some time but it's something that you just get through.