Stop beating yourself up. That sudden, inexplicable urge to pour a heavy drink as soon as the weather turns cold isn't a moral failure. It’s the Seasonal Creep.
The 'Seasonal Creep' is an external force—a collision of holiday expectation, social conditioning, and environmental chaos that derails your hard-won routines. This shift from normal routine to holiday chaos creates powerful cues that make drinking feel almost inevitable.1
The truth is, for many, alcohol consumption is deeply embedded in social settings and cultural norms, especially at seasonal gatherings.2 When the external environment floods your system with cues—the sight of festive lights, the smell of mulled wine, or simply being around people you typically drink with—your desire to drink, or craving, skyrockets.3
You’re walking into a two-front war:
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The Context Collapse: Heavy drinking is highly influenced by situational factors. Historically, cravings are "temporally cued"—they happen at specific times, like the end of the workday.4 The holiday season dismantles those routines and replaces them with high-risk events: office parties, family dinners, and end-of-year deadlines. You've lost your anchor.
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The Stress Signal: Alcohol is overwhelmingly used as a coping mechanism to block or escape emotional pain and to deal with life stressors like work or family pressures. It provides a temporary "nice feeling". The increasing anxiety leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas is a powerful internal cue driving you toward that quick release.5
It’s not weak willpower; it’s conditioning. But you can hack the system.
Here are 3 simple nudges—proven behavioral change techniques—to control the Creep right now:
1. Pre-Plan Your High-Risk Moments (Action Planning)
The trick is deciding before the urge hits. The most successful strategies help you anticipate future challenges and prepare healthy responses in advance. This is called Action Planning or Problem Solving.6
The Nudge: Identify the exact social settings where you know you’ll be tempted (e.g., the office Christmas party, the airport waiting lounge, celebrating a win).7 Then, create an “if-then” script:
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If my co-worker hands me a champagne flute at the party, then I will immediately ask the server for a sparkling water and tell my co-worker I'm pacing myself.
Action planning focuses your attention on proactively managing the situation.8
2. Swap the Material, Keep the Social (Behavior Substitution)
Cultural pressure to conform often prevents people from reducing their consumption or abstaining entirely. If you remove the alcohol, you often feel socially excluded.
The Nudge: Use Behavior Substitution by integrating alcohol-free or low-alcohol drinks (NoLo). NoLo beverages provide a socially acceptable alternative, allowing you to participate in social rituals without feeling negatively judged or needing to justify why you’re not drinking.9
This isn't just theory—it works. Substituting low-alcohol content beverages has shown significant positive effects on reducing blood pressure, for example. It allows you to gain the company and social life without the high-risk element.10
3. Track Your Personal Cues (Self-Monitoring)
The “Seasonal Creep” hits everyone differently. You need to identify your personalized cues—the specific circumstances that lead to high desire to drink.11
The Nudge: Start a simple Self-Monitoring habit.12 For the next 7 days, just track three data points every time you feel a strong desire to drink:
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When: Time of day/Day of week.
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Where: Location (e.g., home kitchen, restaurant, office).
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With Whom: Companions (e.g., alone, partner, group of friends).
Self-monitoring and receiving feedback on your behavior are highly recommended techniques for alcohol reduction. Once you know that, for example, your highest “desire to drink” consistently occurs when you are alone in your kitchen at 6:30 PM, you can either avoid that cue or prepare for it with a proactive strategy.13
Bottom Line: The 'Seasonal Creep' is external pressure disguised as internal failure. You manage external systems with simple systems. Stop fighting yourself and start hacking your environment.
Academic References
