Not 1/3 but 1/5 of Hungarians have a drinking problem: https://dailynewshungary.com/hungary-has-the-highest-rates-o...

Belarus - male population.

I expect it's worse in Russia, but there's not much in reliable stats.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/972561/belarus-alcoholis...

You suspect that only because of the heavy anti-Russian sentiment going around right now (leading to a negative bias without fact checking).

Alcohol consumption is down significantly there and has been on the decline. They’re not even in the top 15 countries who consume the most:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/01/russian-alcoho...

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/alcohol-c...

Interesting, thanks for the links.

So curbs in alcohol sales work pretty well!

Maybe (but you can still buy booze illegally after 11pm - or at bars). I think it's more or less greatly improved economic conditions and improving quality of life. The 1990s and early 2000s in Russia (Belarus & Ukraine as well) were seriously dire. I was surprised by how many people didn't drink in my travels there. A good movie to check out on that time period is "Brother" (Brat).