I’ve noticed that if I say “I won’t do this anymore at all”, it doesn’t work. But if I say “I’ll only spend this much this month on sex workers, gambling, etc.” I’m able to mellow down. I’ve also noticed some people suggest that moderation doesn’t work and you should try to be as cold turkey as possible.
It does for many people, because we as humans are continually in a dance between our conscious and subconscious minds.
Your subconscious mind is trying to protect you and trying to help you manage your emotions through those behaviors.
Your conscious mind is seeing a problem with those behaviors and you want to change.
Your subconscious mind freaks out and it clings harder to the things you’re trying to walk away from, when it fears that you will lose them and correspondingly, It’s ability to manage your feelings through these behaviors.
So in the short term, it can help a lot to tell yourself that you do not need to stop, while you gradually worry about reducing.
But in the longer term, it would be advantageous to you to seek counseling. There is an emotional component that is at play in every unwanted behavior, every addiction. The actual addictive act is almost irrelevant. For example a drinking problem has almost nothing to do with alcohol.