Nine months? Hard to say. I was confident enough by that time, but it's probably different for everyone. About that far into my sobriety, it was my turn to host the monthly poker party with my friends. Alcohol was always present, but I was always the only one that really got sloshed. The others just nursed their drinks.
Remember that advice about leaving the party if you feel in danger of drinking. It really makes it easier when you have an escape route planned. I was debating calling off the poker party because of my fear, until I remembered the escape route plan. But how do you escape from a party if you are the host? I decided it was the same as it is for a guest. You pack up and run to a place of safety. You don't have to even return to the party. The guys would take care of themselves.
It gave me confidence and I made it through the night just fine. I also casually announced at some point in the evening that I had quit drinking without giving any specific details. There was no great round of applause. No one sensed it as some great change or accomplishment. Their reaction was more on the order of an uninterested, "Oh... cool." One guy did seem to catch on to the monumental importance, but he just casually responded, "You know Dave, sometimes a guy just recognizes that he has to do that."
But something funny happened the next day. As was the custom, the guys left their beer and chips and half empty bottles of hard stuff behind. I guess it's kind of a "thank you" to the host. I started gathering the liquor together remembering who brought what so I could return the stuff to the owners. Throwing it out seemed rather rude. But as I was taking a bunch of beer out of the fridge, one or two bottles slipped and went crashing to the kitchen floor. I had get down on my hands and knees to pick up the broken glass before I could mop up the mess, and I got scared. Not that I might be tempted to drink any of it, but on the off chance that one of my new friends from AA might stop by at that very moment and demand an explanation about what I was up to.