i have been on it for 20 years. of course initially they indicated it was "non addictive". we all know better, don't we? i have tried 3 times now to get off. i keep trying to quit every few years or so with the same miserable results. i am at 5 mg every 3 days. i do not feel any withdrawal affects and seem fairly stable. a few months ago i tried again to quit. i handled it better this time and i think i found the key. it took a few months, slow taper down to every 4 days, 5, 6 so on until i went off completely. unlike most of you on this site, i did NOT experience ANY withdrawal until almost 6 weeks AFTER stopping. the first time, i did not ween long enough and it was absolutely horrible, awful, hell on earth. last time, i only felt "flu like" symptoms every day all day and nite, until the 2nd week i was still feeling dragged out fatigue. the final blow was when i experienced a number of stressful things all at the same time and went hysterical, that did it. i went back on and in 2 days i was better...much. I am in my last year of working. i can not, will not go through that physical hell while i am. so once i retire, i will carefully and slowly taper down and stop. i only wish i knew what form of evil this insidious drug is made of. what has it done to all of us inside, that so many can not quit? we trusted doctors who told us this would help us. we trusted and believed those who held our souls in their hands. in hind sight after all this time i would have been better off going through the difficulty with my now X husband, arriving at the other side drug free. who's to say that my staying 20 extra years with him wasn't partly due to being ON paxil in the first place?