Not talking about getting blasted, but a nice drink or two actually helps me get to sleep. When I’m unable to fall asleep, it’s usually due to anxiety. Alcohol is the original anxiolytic drug.
Almost nothing, lucky to get 4-5 hours a day. I spend many many nights with zero hours sleep.
Yup, unfortunately. Otherwise, count me in on the earplugs team; I’ve been addicted to them for ten years now (luckily not alcohol, AFAIK).
The therapeutic effects of alcohol are seriously under appreciated IMHO.
I’ve got this cool CD called Sleep Easy and I listen to it sometimes when my head is too full of thoughts. A woman’s voice encouraging me to relax and slow my mind, against calming music- works like a charm with a melatonin tab under my tongue.
I’m with Tikki. Not everybody needs 8 hours of sleep a night. I used to devote 8 1/2 hours to bed every night. I found I would either stay awake lying in bed for a couple of hours, or wake up way before the alarm went off. Now, I lay down 6 hours before I have to get up, fall asleep within 10 minutes, and wake up just before the alarm goes off and feel good all day. It may be you only need 4 hours.
Sgt Schwartz
I go for a walk most nights before going to bed. Depending on the route that I take the walk is somewhere between 5 and 8 km. I always sleep well afterwards.
I don’t think anyone has mentioned them, so i say to all of you - curtains!
With proper black-out curtains, where night can be any time of the day (if the sound levels are low enough or you’re wearing ear plugs) you can lay down for a few minutes and wake up 3 hours later when the phone rings. If you have thick enough curtains they’ll also drown out a lot of the traffic and ambiance. It’s almost like canceling the windows when you draw them. Keeps out heat/cold too.
Oh god. I usually have no trouble going to sleep, but I almost always wake up at some point and can’t go back to sleep to save my life. Last night was typical: very sleepy while in bed around 11:00, but I had to stay awake until midnight to check something for work. So, at midnight I do a quick check on email, send out a quick email and return to bed ten minutes later. Finally fall asleep around 1:30 or so. Wake up at 3:00, stay awake for about 30 - 45 minutes. Go to sleep and wake up again at 5:00. That was it for the night.
What just frys my bacon is I can fall asleep at completely inappropriate times and places. Like hockey games - playoff games, for chrissake! Rock concerts. While driving a bleeping car. Anywhere but where and when I should.
I alternate taking a benadryl before bed with doing nothing. Benadryl sometimes works to keep me asleep, but doesn’t always, and when it doesn’t I’m really dragged out the next day.
The fact that I can sleep at an Eric Clapton concert at full volume but not sleep in my own bed leads me to think my problem is psychological. That and I often get sleepy and start dozing off five minutes before I’m supposed to get up.
Whatever the hell is causing it, it sucks big time. I hate insomnia, hate it. I’m never ever well rested - not the day of my wedding, or the day of a demanding task at work - never. I always look and feel tired at least, if not like a bleeping zombie.
I use earplugs, and also very, very detailed visualisations to help shut my brain down from all those distracting thoughts it wants me to follow.
I’ve spent years trying to build up a clear mental image of an Inn of my own creation (I don’t put people in it) - clearly seeing the paving outside, the steps leading up, the bushes to the side of the door, the grain in the wood, the line of the stairs… etc, etc. I find that if I can stick with that, and really chock-fill it with detail, I’m generally asleep before I can even get up the staircase.
The key is the details, and picking an image that is restful in and of itself. I think visualising the warm tones of the wood, the smell of the rosemary outside, the lavender-and-honey in the furniture wax, and these sorts of details really helps me get out of that ‘mind racing, can’t shut down’ state.
Anyway, that works for me. 
And I really endorse the earplugs thing, because as others have noted, you’d be surprised how much background noise there is in a ‘silent’ room.
Good luck! Being an insomniac for years, I think I tried everything - glass of alcohol, warm drink, reading before bed, *not *reading before bed… you name it. This was the only combination that worked for me.
No more than one. Although having a couple does *get *you to sleep, the quality of the sleep is much more poor, and you don’t wake up refreshed.
Here are a few things that help me:
Melatonin.
One Aspirin.
A Benadryl.
Ocean waves CD.
Shower/bath with that “baby relaxation” soap.
And yes, a small glass of wine.
Read something that will start you off on a pleasant dream- a vacation brochure maybe?
I run a fan or air filter for white noise.
Fatigue. If that doesn’t work, then a glass of red wine, a little port, or a snifter of armangac. Failing that I stay up until I am fatigued. Sex also works, although my partner’s availability can be a bit unreliable.
Sex is always good. Fatigue from physical exertion is good. A glass of wine or a heavy beer (as gross as it that sounds to some people, it’s good if you like beer) is good.
I like to read something boring or dense, Tolkien for instance. Right now I’m reading the New Testament of the Bible and let me tell you - it’s slow going right now. John’s gospel just knocks me right out.
At the moment, Ambien. 
I don’t like drugs, but I’ve been struggling with insomnia for the past year since I moved here. Before that (excluding a couple other years of upheaval - and always when I live in states starting with the letter M, but I think that’s just coincidental) I used to sleep really really well. I miss that!
I think I need to look into the meditation/relaxation stuff.
This is the same thing I do…(well, not the Inn part). I have two or three mental “scenarios” that I’ll choose from to think about and put me to sleep. As BWP said, it’s very important to make your mental image as detailed as you can…also for me consistancy is very important. Make sure that you imagine the thing the same way every time. For me it’s the layout and design of my dream house. Every doorway, window, floor, where the steps are, what the tile looks like…the library…what it looks like from outside. All these things are included in my walkthrough.
It’s like you’re training your mind…“when I think about this, it’s time to sleep” so I found that I go to sleep easier/faster because my mind knows that it’s time to sleep when I think of that particular mental image.
Good Luck!
I went through horrible nearly hallucination inducing insomnia about six months ago. I’m someone who generally sleeps easily. I’d gotten to the point that the thought of sleep was anxiety producing - which isn’t condusive to sleep.
For me, getting a few nights worth of “knock you on you butt” perscription sleep seems to reset me. (Ambien, sleep of the damned - but its better than no sleep at all). There were a few other things that helped.
Getting a shoulder that had started to bother me resolved with Chiropractic visits (OK, not really resolved, but its better).
Both Melatonin and Valerian (pill form) before bed (not along with the perscriptions) seems to help. On night one if I’m laying in bed not falling asleep - or if its bedtime and I don’t seem sleepy - I go that direction. Night two is perscription night.
And/or overly demonized.
I wanted to add to this that even decaffinated beverages have a little bit of caffeine - so no decaf coffee after dinner either.
Have you tried a glass of warm milk and a Dan Brown novel?