Ok, I'll throw my 2 cents in here. Humans have a tendency to personify things: "Satan", "God", "Shiva", "Yaweh" etc., because it makes the phenomena easier to deal with and explain; abstract ideas are not most people's strong point.
We like to give a reason for things because we like to compartmentalize things: this person goes in this compartment, this one there, and because they are in a nice neat little box, they should display certain behaviours.
Then much to our dismay the "nice" girl, the "good" boy, turn into raving, drug-addicted lunatics so we try to find a reason for it: "The Devil made him do it", when in reality there may be absolutely NO rhyme or reason for the behaviour.
The reason they "turned away from the church" is because the church usually tries to teach good moral values and that makes addicts uncomfortable. What they want is a group of people who validate their addictions and chances are they wouldn't find that in church, synagogue, or mosque.
Now LISTEN, I am NOT dissing anyone's religious beliefs here and I am NOT trying to make anyone uncomfortable, I am just relating my observations on the portions of society I have observed.