This chapter shows how contemporary attitudes towards alcoholism were affected by long-standing cultural mores, ideas about identity and beliefs about different ‘types’ of alcohol. Physicians became concerned about alcohol-induced diseases at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, despite the economic benefits of alcohol to Greek commerce. The author maps the competing ideas of alcohol as nutrition and as poison within the context of a ‘wet culture’. Greek psychiatrists were divided between proponents of total abstinence and advocates of moderate use, who also made a distinction between fermented and distilled beverages. Eventually, Greek psychiatrists came to perceive ‘immoderate’ alcohol consumption as a pathology. The chapter highlights the importance of transnational networks to treatment at the Athens lunatic asylum, which was mainly influenced by French and German approaches.