Hi Russell, for what it's worth, I'm a religious person (Christian) who often gets really irked by lots of other religious people. So in going to AlAnon, I worried that I'd be surrounded by the kind of sanctimonious people that I get irked by. However, I found that wasn't the case. Some people are into a lot of God talk, others (like me) save our God stuff for somewhere else and go to AlAnon for experience, strength and hope.
I did stumble a bit on the higher-power business, but when I thought about what there was that was bigger than me, and that potentially had the power to change my life, I came up with "creativity". I could go into a long thing about why this particular idea worked for me but I won't - suffice it to say that my sponsor and everyone else was completely fine with this interpretation of "higher power".