The review provides historical facts showing that in contrast to the Western Europe mass scale strong alcohol consumption has only recently become an element of Belarussian history and culture. The types of commonly consumed alcoholic beverages are described as well as the attitude of different government institutions to production and consumption of alcohol by Belarussian population starting from the times of Great Princedom of Lithuania and up to the early 20th century. Various public initiatives aimed at to resisting to the population mass-scale involvement in alcohol abuse are described.