People who pray drink less alcohol.
Intriguing piece of research which seems to indicate that those who pray consume less alcohol and are less likely to have alcohol related problems.
Of course this could be a chicken and egg situation, however, those randomly assigned to regular prayer also reported less alcohol consumption.
US National Library of Medicine
Lambert, N. et al., “Invocations and Intoxication: Does Prayer Decrease Alcohol Consumption?” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors (June 2010).
Abstract
Four methodologically diverse studies (N = 1,758) show that prayer frequency and alcohol consumption are negatively related. In Study 1 (n = 824), we used a cross-sectional design and found that higher prayer frequency was related to lower alcohol consumption and problematic drinking behavior. Study 2 (n = 702) used a longitudinal design and found that more frequent prayer at Time 1 predicted less alcohol consumption and problematic drinking behavior at Time 2, and this relationship held when controlling for baseline levels of drinking and prayer. In Study 3 (n = 117), we used an experimental design to test for a causal relationship between prayer frequency and alcohol consumption. Participants assigned to pray every day (either an undirected prayer or a prayer for a relationship partner) for 4 weeks drank about half as much alcohol at the conclusion of the study as control participants. Study 4 (n = 115) replicated the findings of Study 3, as prayer again reduced drinking by about half. These findings are discussed in terms of prayer as reducing drinking motives.
July 25th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
I found that if you tend to pray, say grace, or give thanks before you ingest something… it really cuts down on the alcohol..
‘Dear Lord, bless this large amounts of whiskey which I am about to consume in order to wash away my problems, only to make matters worse and leave me feeling like a delivery truck as used my head, repeatedly, as a stop’