For me personally it continued my addiction to sweet tasting things. This gave me cravings for other sweets. The diet soda was the last thing I gave up and when I finally did my cravings for other sweets went away. 

There are lots of both negative and positive things said about artificial sweeteners. It is a deep subject. My opinion is they are a crutch to help a person not eat as much sugar but they are not ideal food. They have no nutritive value. But lots of us use crutches for lots of things, myself included. For me personally it is just easier to just say no. But that is just a personal decision for myself. No judgement on what others decide for themselves.

Here is a researcher that I value the opinion of very highly with some information if you want to go down the rabbit hole.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ben+bikman+artificial+sweeteners #mce_temp_url#