[Alcohol as a provoking factor of suicidal behavior].

A study was made of the time-course of changes in the rate of suicides in some cities of South Kazakhstan. Hard drinking and chronic alcoholism were established to play a prominent role in the occurrence of suicidal situations. The positive changes in the social life that occurred over the recent years, realization of measures aimed at the control of hard drinking and alcoholism favoured a 35.4-percent reduction in the number of suicides. However, in spite of such a reduction, the share among the suicides of persons who resorted to self-aggression in a state of alcoholic intoxication remains in fact at the former level. This dictates the necessity of applying more efforts to the control of hard drinking and alcoholism.