At the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries, Russia experienced an extremely strong political and economic crisis that had a negative effect on the psycho-emotional condition of the population and provoked the rise of alcohol and drug addictions. This article contains an analysis of the connections between the social and demographic situation in Russia and illnesses connected with alcohol abuse. The data are provided, showing the increase of alcoholic psychoses during the crisis and their decline in 2004-2006. The effect of maternal alcoholism on children’s mental health is analysed, and the indicators of the increase of mental disorders among adolescents born in the 1990s (during the crisis) are presented. Mental and neurotic disorders of children caused by maternal alcoholic addiction are discussed in terms of the consisted patterns of prenatal corticogenesis and the crucial period in brain development. The authors make an assumption that the crisis of the 1990s will cause a rise in the i