Russia has one of the highest alcoholism (alcohol dependence) and alcoholic psychoses incidence/prevalence rates in Europe, which may be explained by high overall population drinking and prevalence of irregular heavy drinking of vodka. The role of binge drinking in modifying the effect of alcohol on the risk of alcoholic psychoses in Russia has been emphasized in clinical and aggregate-level studies.

The present study aims to examine the phenomenon of dramatic fluctuations in alcoholism and alcoholic psychoses rates in Russia during the late Soviet (1970–1991) to post-Soviet period (1992–2015).

To examine the relation between changes in the sales of alcohol and alcoholism/alcoholic psychoses incidence/prevalence rates across the study period a time-series analysis was performed.

According to the results, alcohol sales is a statistically significant associated with alcoholic psychoses incidence/prevalence rates, implying that a 1 litre increase in per capita alcohol sales is associated with an increase in the alcoholic psychoses incidence/prevalence rates of 17.6% and 14.0% correspondingly. The association between alcohol sales per capita and alcoholism incidence/prevalence rates was also positive, but statistically not significant.

These findings suggest that the alcoholic psychoses incidence/prevalence rates are the reliable indicators of alcohol-related problems at the population level. The outcomes of this study also provide indirect support for the hypothesis that the dramatic fluctuations in the alcoholic psychoses incidence/prevalence rates in Russia during the last decades were related to the availability/affordability of alcohol.

The author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.