Brie...

Trazodone is a different drug . . . it's an old breed of antidepressant, which doesn't work that well :D but in small doses it is sedating. It's a common sleeping pill and NOT addictive like heroin or Xanax, but you do get "reliant" on it, that's for sure (I took it for years and know of what you speak). "True" addiction is an actual physical process, where your body stops producing it's own natural stuff because you are putting a substitute substance into you. Like with pain pills or heroin, your body stops making it's own endorphins, so when you quit the pain pills or heroin, you are without ANY thing. Every cell of your body hurts. Alcohol and sedatives like Xanax work the same way, they depress your nervous system, and pretty soon, your nervous system compensates by needing the alcohol or pills to stay calm. If you don't drink or pop a pill, you are a nervous wreck, your heart pounds, your hands shake, your thoughts are a freaked out jumble. Some people have seizures and some have even died from that kind of withdrawl. For the rest of the substances we get "hooked" on, it's more a psychological addiction, like the addiction to a Narc. It's just as real, but it's not deadly. Just uncomfortable and incredibly sucky until you rebalance. I had a patient who was "hooked" on Benadryl, and I think Robitussin. Drank at least a bottle a day as well as the pills. It was to keep her calm, her husband was abusive (this came out while she was in rehab). She JONES'D and flipped when she didn't have the benadryls in her purse. She even snuck some up into her room, she was TERRIFIED to be without them. Tramadol (Michelle's med) could have more conventionally addictive possibilities, but not real bad ones.