A recent study showed that increases in clinical diagnoses related to alcohol misuse, substance misuse, and suicide ideation/behavior between 2009 and 2018 largely mirror the broader mortality trends from these three causes (Brignone et al., 2020). The rise in drug poisoning deaths is well studied, and scholars have offered plausible explanations for this phenomenon. Explanations…

This offers an alternative explanation for the opposite genetic associations38, particularly in an older clinical sample in which a large proportion report current abstinence (reflected in an AUDIT-C score of 0). For this complex set of genetic associations to be useful in informing clinical recommendations on safe levels of alcohol consumption, it will be necessary…