RELIGION CONFUSED? VS THE HIGHER POWER CLARIFIED

This book is dedicated to recovering alcoholics and addicts all over the world.
Although I have been counseling recovering alcoholics and addicts for over thirty years, an opposing force seems to interrupt the process. That opposing force appears to be religion. People in recovery seem to believe that the “Higher Power” and religion is one and the same.
When expressing their inability to turn their will over to a Higher Power, they make the following statements: “Those folk in the church are always judging me. It seems like they’re sharping their knives as I tell my story. They look down on me and act like they are better than me.” I found that to be very detrimental to their recovery process. So I did my best to explain to them that religion is a man-made concept and that the “Higher Power” is a divine existence well beyond man’s control. Apparently, they were talking about Religious Fundamentalist, which, according to World Atlas, are people who believe in the absolute the authority of a sacred religious text or teaching of a particular religious leader, prophet, and God.
Beliefs and feelings, rather than fact, make Religion the most powerful phenomenon known to man!
Am I confused by religion, or did religion confuse me?
It is clear that most people participating in organized religion are nothing more than a group of bullies. They adopt a cause and loosely quote a scripture from the Bible to justify their quest. In most cases, the cause that they are against does not affect them directly. For example, a bowling establishment is being bullied by the church members
belonging to a church located next door. Representatives from the church said that they would boycott the bowling establishment if the establishment sold beer. Please note that the bowling establishment was built and established before the church was built next to it.