Traditional threats to the health of Russian citizens: drunkenness and alcoholism

The article highlights the topic of excessive alcohol consumption in our country, which has seen both positive and negative trends. On the one hand, “Russians are drinking less” — the proportion of non–drinkers has doubled over the past 20 years to 48%. On the other hand, it remains beyond explanation that the number of drinking establishments in Russia has increased by almost a quarter over the past year, as many new pubs, bars and cocktail lounges have opened. Russians still see the main motive for alcohol abuse as a desire to relieve stress and tension (38% in 2024 and 2004, respectively). More than a quarter of respondents consider lack of willpower to be the reason for their addiction (27%, 2004 — 29%), and one in five speaks of the need for people to “fill in” grief or trouble (20%, 2004 — 17%). As the author notes, drunkenness and alcoholism always remain a lifestyle, holistic phenomena that need a comprehensive study. A significant place in the article is given to the differentiation of the concepts of alcoholism and drunkenness, the signs of alcohol dependence syndrome are systematized and the relevance of this disease among young people is shown. The article presents data from a sociological survey using a methodology developed and tested by the staff of the Faculty of Sociology of Moscow State University in 2023 as part of the work on the grant “Social design of youth health in the context of digitalization”. And, despite the fact that a number of the results of the author’s research on alcohol consumption are ambiguous, some trends have been identified. For example, young people who do not drink alcohol rate their health level lower (59,6%) as good or excellent; half of the older age groups (50%) rate this level. At the same time, those who do not drink alcohol are much more likely to turn to sources that highlight health-related issues. For example, they turn to a source of information, such as scientific literature, more than twice as often as those who drink (23,08% compared to 9,62%).

However, those who do not drink alcohol are much more likely to have no bad habits (85,4%), although some of them (26,8%) smoke. They mostly explain their refusal to drink alcohol by the practices adopted in their family, which are of great importance to most of them (88,5%). Among those who consume alcoholic beverages, there are significantly fewer of them — 24,5%. The author also provides a classification of students depending on the frequency of their alcohol consumption, justified by other researchers, identifies the causes that cause a further tendency to drunkenness and alcoholism, and shows promising areas of research.

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