Second, the seasonal pattern of alcohol consumption during the pandemic differs from the one in previous years among the same population. Thus, our results show lower drinking levels during the strictest lockdown periods, compared to the equivalent periods before the pandemic. To the best of our knowledge, no other study has compared the seasonality of alcohol consumption during the pandemic with the periods prior to it. Moreover, our results contrast with one consistent finding in the literature, namely: the overall increase in alcohol consumption levels around the Christmas season. While this has been widely reported in different contexts (Lemmens and Knibbe, 1993, Uitenbroek, 1996) -sometimes called the “January effect” (Carpenter, 2003)-, our study shows that drinking levels during Christmas 2020 were at its lowest point, probably due to the strong restrictions in family gatherings that led many individuals to cancel or postpone their celebrations.
