I just went to my first meeting yesterday too. The main thing I got was that it made me focus on my situation with alcohol that evening instead of my usual pattern of "forgetting" the situation.
Kind of makes it real by putting it in three dimensional format.
My relationship with alcohol was no longer a concept in my head or a post on a blog. it was real - flesh and blood.
I was sober for fives years before getting back into drinking two years ago. So I know I had to make some kind of physical change in my life. All the God talk turned me off too but I'm just going to give it a shot and see if there is anything for me in the program.