Whatever it says on the package, anything that helps you get to sleep has some potential to cause sleep dependence (what you described). You're not wasting space at all. My suggestion would be if there's a time when it wouldn't be critical to get enough sleep (like if you're a student, then during a school break), and don't take them even if you have trouble sleeping - eventually you'll be tired enough to sleep without them - and see if your body is able to go back to its natural sleep patterns. If that doesn't help or isn't possible, then the only other thing I can recommend is to talk to your doctor about it, since he/she probably knows more about it than I do, although other people on here might also have more suggestions than that.
On a side note, I've always found that OTC sleeping pills actually kept me up rather than helping me sleep. Although, I also couldn't sleep after I ODed on something that contained both antihistamines and opiates, so maybe I'm just weird.
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