Alcohol addiction as a social problem in Ukraine: history of research

Ukraine is the only state among the European countries, which is stuck in the inter-crisis space. After global crisis 2008-2009 most countries succeeded in restoring a positive economic outlook. Ukraine still suffers from crisis manifestations today. The present extremely weak economic dynamics of Ukraine - in conditions of ongoing military aggression, deepening and the expansion of negative tendencies in the economy, low level of trust to the system of public administration, high corruption, weak financial discipline, and unsatisfactory investment attractiveness and excessive debt burden - indicates maintenance “pre-default" risks for Ukraine and the country's loss of a worthy place in the world the economy.

One in four Ukrainians who suffers from alcohol dependence is a person under the age of 35. According to researchers conducted by the Ukrainian Research Institute of Social and Forensic Psychiatry and Narcology of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, 22% of pupils and students of secondary and higher educational schools drink alcohol almost every day, or at least several times a week.

Anti-alcohol campaigns were held in the USSR more than once (1929, 1958, 1972, 1985). The last of them (of 1985) was mostly remembered by the following tasks:

• to propagate "a sober way of life";
• to sell alcohol only from 14:00 to 18:00;
• to increase penalties for appearing in public space in a drunken kind;
• to popularize non-alcoholic weddings and parties;
• to reduce the production of vodka annually by 10% by using in an active, centralized and massive way the directive-prohibiting and punitive measures.

Since the late 1990s, under the influence of various circumstances such as the rejection of the socialist model of Ukraine's development, the development of the information society, the opening of borders and the access to international information, on the one hand, and an assessment of social circumstances associated with the dependence on psychoactive substances, on the other hand, the attitude to freedom and responsibility of citizens not only for their own behavior, but also for the state of society, the situation begins to change. From purely medical or criminological interpretations, the situation gradually turns into an interpretation as a bio-psycho-social problem.