I substituted sugary snacks with fatty snacks. Having some good cheese in your fridge helps a ton - a few slices on some fancy bread is much more satisfying than cookies or candy or cake ever was. I don't end up craving more in 10 minutes time, so my total calorie consumption goes down.

And no, I think substituting one source of sugar for another is just an expensive way of continuing to eat sugar. If you were trying to get an alcoholic to stop drinking, you wouldn't suggest they switch from cheap wine to "just a glass of Bordeaux before bed", although that sounds like a suggestion they might make :-). You'd suggest they find something else to do that fills the social and metabolic hole the alcohol leaves behind. That's what good cheese has done for me.

And yeah, sometimes I do have something sweet, usually in an unavoidable social situation, but it has been getting easier to stop eating sugar after a relapse each time it happens.