GHB is addicting and has serious side effects in some people, but that is not the majority.
The following is purely ficticious.....
One of my friends turned me onto GHB in 1994. While I was able to control consumption, only using it when going to a party, out to the movies with my girl etc... He fell victim to it, and started using it every day, throught the whole day. He did this for nearly two years. One night, without talking to me, he decided he was going to quit cold turkey. He couldn't go to sleep. He started hallucinating, seeing vampires flying around his room. He said there was a small chinese boy hiding under his bed with a butcher knife. He decided he couldn't quit cold turkey, and went to take a cap of it. When he opened the bottle, he said millions of colored balls started pouring out of it into the air, filling the room. At this time, he left his room, and noticed Vampires and werewolves all up in his house, and some of the Vampires were raping his mom on their pool table. He ran downstairs to his dads room (his parents sleep in different rooms because his dad snores.) yelling that "Vampires are upstairs raping mom". He was completely out of his mind. His dad showed him that his mom was sleeping in the bed, but he didn't believe. He kept insisting that she was upstairs being raped. His dad said his hearbeat was flying. He got my friend to get into the car, and drove straight to the emergency room. They had to put him in intensive care for 7 days. Kept all of these machines hooked up to him. They had to strap him down to the bed. He thought that an indian had tied him up, and was cutting off his dick. (this is when they were inserting the catheter). Luckily, after another week in the hospital, he was fine.
I, myself, have gone in spells using GHB. I have used it throught the day for weeks at a time before, the longest being 2 months, and have stopped cold turkey with no adverse effects. The only "addiction" that I ever notice when stopping is the first night. It's hard to get to sleep the first night you stop using it, since you're used to passing out. After that first night though, it's like I was never using it.
Now I mainly use it as an alcohol replacement, and occasionally I'll use it during the day. If I'm depressed, I'll use it to help me. I'm a very shy person too. So if I'm going to be around a lot of new people I don't know, I find it often helps for me to have had a couple grams. It lets me open up a lot easier.