A couple days ago we discussed "Man's Bedrock" -- does putting a source of value and certainty at the deepest level in something external help during highly leveraged moments?
Turns out, there's answer. And it's --
Sort of.
I just came across this explanation from "The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business." It certainly seems plausible --
"Over and over again, alcoholics said the same thing: Identifying cues and choosing new routines is important, but without another ingredient, the new habits never fully took hold.
The secret, the alcoholics said, was God.
Researchers hated that explanation. Got and spirituality are not testable hypotheses. Churches are filled with drinks and people who continue drinking despite a pious faith. In conversations with addicts, though, spirituality kept coming up again and again.
[…]
A pattern emerged [from new research and surveys]. Alcoholics who practiced the techniques of habit replacement, the data indicated, could often stay sober until there was a stressful event in their lives -- at which point, a certain number started drinking again, no matter how many new routines they had embraced.
However, those alcohols who believed, like John in Brooklyn, that some higher power had entered their lives were more likely to make it through the stressful periods with their sobriety intact.
It wasn't God that mattered, the researchers figured out. It was belief itself that made a difference. Once people learned how to believe in something, that skill started spilling over to other parts of their lives, until they started believing they could change. Belief was the ingredient that made a reworked habit loop into a permanent behavior."