Alcohol history in Europe

Alcohol statistics in Europe show that the consumption increased from approximately 1961 until the 1980s and then started to decrease until they reached a stable level of around 5 liters per person per year, while alcohol consumption has increased steadily in the South-East Asian and Western Pacific regions, but is stable or falling in all other regions.

Since the beginning of the 1960's the average consumption of alcohol for adults around the world (which is expressed as liters of pure alcohol from beer, wine and other spirits) has ranged from 4 to 6 liters per person yearly.

Alcohol statistics in Europe have been much higher than in any other zone, varying from about 17 liters per person yearly during peak years down to a little over 10 liters per person per year in the end of the 1990's. The US shows the second highest alcohol consumption level, followed by Africa. At the other end, the South-East Asian area and the Eastern Mediterranean zone show the lowest statistical level of alcohol consumption.

The biggest alcohol consumption nation in Europe is Russia. Although not in the European Union, according to the Soviet People's Commissar for Public Health, Russia has a history with Alcohol. As the comissar says: "the Tsar made the people drink and held them in ignorance. The worker or the peasant often did not have the opportunity to spend his leisure other than to get drunk and forget the nightmares of his dependent, slave-like existence".  Boris Segal wrote a  book about the abuse of alcohol in Russia before the Revolution,  in which he quoted a document from that time that mentioned that "it wasn’t unusual for men and women who were drinking together to engage in sex in full view of laughing onlookers without any sense of shame".