Why you're reading this. Months of bad nights, bad enough to bleed into your days — that's chronic insomnia territory, and the first-line treatment recommended by the American College of Physicians isn't a pill. It's CBT-I: cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. It consistently outperforms sleep medication over time, without the dependence.
Less scary than "therapy" sounds: a structured 4–8 week program that retrains the connection between your bed and sleep. The core tools — stimulus control (bed is for sleep; up after ~20 wakeful minutes), sleep restriction (temporarily matching time-in-bed to actual sleep, then expanding — counterintuitive, and the single most effective part, which is also why it should be done with guidance), cognitive work on the 3am spiral, and relapse-proofing. It's skills, not couch-talk.
As a supporting layer at most — and during sleep restriction, your program may ask you to hold off entirely. Do the program. It has the best evidence in all of sleep medicine, and it's the reason our own assessment sent you here instead of to a product.
Education, not medical advice or a diagnosis. If sleep restriction is involved, do it with clinical guidance — and never drive drowsy.