Alcohol abuse has long been considered an important factor of suicidal behavior. The solid body of research and empirical evidence suggests that hazardous pattern of alcohol consumption (binge drinking) lead to quicker and deeper intoxication, increasing the propensity for alcohol-related suicide. Purpose: To estimate the aggregate level effect of binge drinking on suicide rate.

Trends in age-adjusted, total and sex-specific suicide and fatal alcohol poisoning rate in Belarus from 1970 to 2005 were analyzed employing ARIMA analysis in order to asses bivariate relationship between time series.

According to official statistics, the suicide rate increased 1.8 fold (from 17.6 to 30.8 per 100.000 of population) and fatal alcohol poisoning rate increased 6.8 fold (from 4.9 to 33.5 per 100.000 of population) in Belarus from 1970 to 2005. The results of time series analysis indicate the presence of statistically significant association between two time series at zero lag for total population (r = 0.48; S.E. = 0.17), for males (r = 0.48; S.E. = 0.17), and females (r = 0.48; S.E. = 0.17).

This study supports the hypothesis that suicide and alcohol closely connected in culture with prevailing intoxication-oriented drinking patterns and adds to the growing body of evidence that a substantial proportion of suicide in Belarus is due to acute effect of binge drinking. The outcome of this study also suggests that alcohol-related suicide is mainly a male phenomenon.