I've never been Involved with AA, so I might not have the most accurate information, but I also wondered this one evening, and ended up reading a bunch of articles, as well as the AA Handbook's section on Step 2[1].
From what I gathered, AA wants you to trust your recovery to a Higher Power, because then you can depend on said higher power to pull you through times of personal weakness (because nobody's strong all the time, let alone a recovering alcoholic). The term Higher Power in the handbook often pretty explicitly refers to the Christian God, but I remember the same handbook saying that the connection to the Higher Power is a distinctly personal one, and that each AA member can choose to define their higher power as they wish.
It is true that a lot of AA members end up finding Jesus as part of their recovery, but many also get through it by trusting in a different god, or in humanity, or in the elegant universe, or in the transcendental power of the AA group itself.
From what I gathered that evening, AA's process is very much faith-based, but what you're putting your faith in is flexible, and doesn't really matter to most AA groups.
From what I gathered, AA wants you to trust your recovery to a Higher Power, because then you can depend on said higher power to pull you through times of personal weakness (because nobody's strong all the time, let alone a recovering alcoholic). The term Higher Power in the handbook often pretty explicitly refers to the Christian God, but I remember the same handbook saying that the connection to the Higher Power is a distinctly personal one, and that each AA member can choose to define their higher power as they wish.
It is true that a lot of AA members end up finding Jesus as part of their recovery, but many also get through it by trusting in a different god, or in humanity, or in the elegant universe, or in the transcendental power of the AA group itself.
From what I gathered that evening, AA's process is very much faith-based, but what you're putting your faith in is flexible, and doesn't really matter to most AA groups.
[1]http://www.aa.org/assets/en_US/en_step2.pdf