is it the triune brain's fault?

We may need to understand the triune brain to understand why programs like OA and TOPS sort of work, some of the time.

Triune brain primer:   http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/d/d_05/d_05_cr/d_05_cr_her/d_05_cr_her.html

Working the reptilian part:   http://www.eruptingmind.com/beating-the-reptilian-brain/

So the level of the urge to eat, especially when we see, smell food, or even graphical images of food, may be at the same depth as our belief system. I expect that the urge to eat is reptilian or deep limbic. Could our belief system be this deep? How deep can learned response or learned automatic behaviors be stored?

I was a engineer before retiring and live on a acreage with an oversized garden. I grew up on a farm, and worked an 1948 Case SC RC tractor. I learned that if it rears grab the clutch. It never happened other than for demonstration but I learned that as an automatic reaction. I was plowing the garden with my little Ford and it reared a bit, and I grabbed for where the hand clutch would have been. How deep would that memory be, after probably 50 years of not thinking about that? Are beliefs that deep?

Is that why OA and TOPS work a little bit. Then work on the same level as our belief system, even if the beliefs OA tries to train in are wrong?