Millennia alcoholism was considered at the household level. People knew that drinking was bad, ugly and harmful to health. "Drinking is an exercise in madness," Pythagoras said. "Beauty dies from wine, youth is reduced by wine," Horace noted. And the philosopher Seneca argued: "Drunkenness is voluntary madness. But the already insightful Catherine II translated this phenomenon into the plane of politics. She said: "Drunken folk are easier to manage."