It varies a lot from meeting to meeting. Regional cultures may push the religious aspects more strongly, but other cultures take the "as we understood Him" part very seriously. That's a loophole that enables atheist approaches to AA.
It's still "culty" in the sense that they're explicitly seeking out desperate people. If you have an evidence-based way to manage your consumption of alcohol, by all means do it. Such routes help a ton of people, and they have no need of AA.
AA is for people who "hit rock bottom" after having tried everything else. It's that mechanism that appeals to nonbelievers: you realize that you can't trust yourself and are so desperate you'll try anything because the alternatives are worse (dying, or living in agony).
That won't work for everybody, either. It probably works no better than placebo. But if that's the placebo that works for you, then you've found something.
Not everyone in AA sees it as I've just described it. AA brings out the worst in some people. Going there is a choice you should take only when you're willing to risk that. But you do at least have some control over what meeting you find. Large cities especially will have lots of different meetings, and you keep looking around until you fine one that works for you.
I do need to put in a caveat: I'm not an alcoholic and I know AA only through people who are close to me. My description is secondhand at best. But it's a view that makes sense to me: it helps who it helps, and for those for whom it doesn't, find something else. Unlike other cults, it's not demanding your money or your recruitment efforts. (That's something they're very clear on regardless of the meeting; anybody evangelizing AA to any except the absolute most desperate is doing it wrong.)