My insomnia started when I was diagnosed with AML back in June 2000. I've had very serious problems with insomnia ever since then. It comes and goes depending circumstances and the whims of my subconscious. E.g. Last month I had to have cataract surgery. There were complications to that which required 4 more surgeries/”procedures”. When that was all over I got the flu. When that was over I had to have a tooth pulled. Oy! I’m one of those people in this forum who, merely by the “luck” of the draw, have the worst luck in the forum (it had to be someone, right? Lol!!)  In the past I was treated with klonapin at first. That didn’t work very well. They started me on Ambien. Now this was a while back when they thought that Ambien wasn’t addictive. So I was taking it every night, and it was working great! Problem was that I tried to stop and two days later I went through terrible withdrawals. I then tried off the shelf sleeping pills. The active ingredient in most of those is Diphenhydramine, which as you might know is merely the active ingredient in Benadryl. Same thing is in Tylenol PM. So if you’re going to try it get the generic pills and make sure it’s Diphenhydramine, 50mg should do it. It can have the bad side effect of causing a slight headache. My psychiatrist gave me Trazodone. It’s a sedative which works wonderful. Ask your doctor about it. Best wishes Pete

As far as Ambien being addictive please see

http://www.ambiencr.com/using-ambien/ambien-cr-side-effects.aspx

which reads

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Dependence
Sleep medicines can cause dependence, especially when used regularly for longer than a few weeks or at high doses. Some people develop a need to continue taking their sleep medication. This is known as dependence or "addiction."

When people develop dependence, they may have difficulty stopping the sleep medicine. If the medicine is suddenly stopped, the body is not able to function normally and unpleasant symptoms may occur (see withdrawalsection). They may find that they have to keep taking the medicines either at the prescribed dose or at increasing doses just to avoid withdrawal symptoms.

All people taking sleep medicines face some risk of becoming dependent on the medicine. However, people who have been dependent on alcohol or other drugs in the past may have a greater chance of becoming addicted to sleep medicines.

This possibility must be considered before using any kind of sleep medicine. If you have been addicted to alcohol or drugs in the past, it is important to tell your healthcare professional before starting AMBIEN CR or any sleep medicine.

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I apologize if what I said led you to believe that I was saying that it was a bad thing to be addicted to sleeping meds. I was only talking about the physical addiction and only then to warn the reader that if they are choose to stop taking the medication that they do so incrementally and not stop cold turkey since the later can make you extremely ill. Sorry if I was unclear on that point.