Attachment to god, spiritual coping, and alcohol use

We examined the effect of emotional God attachment on undergraduates' alcohol use generally and for coping purposes and whether spiritual coping styles (collaborative, deferring, and self-directing) drive this effect. As hypothesized, people who feel secure in their emotional relationship with God use significantly more deferring, more collaborative, and less self-directing coping styles than people who feel anxious-ambivalent in their emotional relationship to God. Anxious-ambivalents use significantly more deferring, more collaborative, and less self-directing coping than people who feel disengaged from God (avoidants). Secures use alcohol significantly less than anxious- ambivalents, who use alcohol significantly less than avoidants. The effect of God attachment on general alcohol use was mediated by the use of self-directing (but not deferring or collaborative) spiritual coping style.