Best way to fall asleep at night?

I have always had trouble falling asleep at night. When i was younger I would try an antihistamine or NyQuil, but those just made me hyper. I've tried hot baths to relax me, lavender oils on my pillow, reading, meditation. nothing worked. The past few years i've been trying sleeping pills. 1st OTC like unisom, which worked for the 1st 3-4 nights, but I developed such a high tolerance for it so quickly that I would have to take about 8 to fall asleep and it gave me some very scary side effects from taking that much. Next I went to the dr. who gave me Lunesta. that didn't work and left such a bad taste in my mouth that I couldn't drink even water the day after without it tasting horrible. Next step was Ambien. It was a wonder drug at first. 10mg and I was out like a light within 15 min or so. after a week of that, my tolerance to that built up and was ending up having to take 50mg to get to sleep within an hour. The only time I can seem to fall asleep at a decent hour is if I drink about a pint of rum, but I can't be doing that forever. I can usually fall asleep pretty easily once it gets to be around 10am. I've even tried staying up for over 24hrs in hopes that once night time comes i'd be so tired that I would fall asleep, but I just end up staying up until it gets light out. My sleeping habits (or lack there of) is making every aspect of my life harder. I can't get a normal job b/c I can't sleep at night, and where I live there are very few overnight positions available. ANY advice on what has helped you or someone you know would be greatly appreciated.