I found things had got a lot better and the compulsion to drink had gone by the time I got about half way into step nine. For me that was ninety days. I have heard others with times from two weeks out to a year, but it always seems to be at step 9.
I once heard the question "When should I do the steps?" answered with another question "when do you want to recover? If you want to recover now, we'll take the steps now. If you want to recover later, I guess we can put off the steps, but you'll probably drink." This actually describes my experience quite well.