If they don’t like it, take your bottle and go home.
One of AA's means of getting control of oneself is to recognize a higher power. Duh.
It DOES work.
An old acquaintance of mine had a alky father and SHE assumed that she had the "genes," or whatever, so she stopped drinking LONG ago and still holds true to AA.
She hasn't been inside a church, though, for DECADES and doesn't acknowledge a higher power beyond, "Oh yeah, God..." Some acknowledgement.