My mum is 69 and has severe arthritis in her lower back, she has been like this for as long as I can remember 
She can only walk with a tri walker and is in pain every day. For years she has taken Di-hydrcodeine, but it stopped working, so GP gave her anti inflammatories and Tramadol.
Worked for a while, normal GP stopped her taking AI as they are not good for her long term. She went downhill rapidly, saw locum GP who told her to double the Tramadol, so she was taking 8 a day!! 
Saw another locum as she was still in agony, he gave her AI, paracetamol and told her to STOP Tramadol, just stop it, not on a gradual basis nothing! So on Tuesday she stopped taking them, by Thursday she could hardly stand, was sick, headache, sweating, she looked terrible etc.
I used to be a drug and alcohol worker for 8 years, she was like a Heroin addict withdrawing. I didn't know she had stopped taking them, she is very stubborn about her illness and won't listen to anyone. She is completely naive about opiate based medication and couldn't understand why she felt so bad. She also doesn't understand she has developed a tolerance to opiate medication so thats why it doesn't work anymore.
I went to see her today, explained why this had happened and she took one tablet, within a couple of hours she felt much better!
So, she has decided she doesn't want to take anything like that anymore, however, nothing I say will convince her she can't just stop and needs to do it gradually. I feel the locum GP was irresponsible telling her to just stop especially on the high dose she was taking!
But, she needs some form of pain relief, but what? Also is there an easy way to withdraw of the damn tablets??