symptoms may confer more risk at low levels of EXT (Colder et al., 2013, 2017). Third, early initiation and development of AUD may be linked with negative social, academic, and functional outcomes that increase risk for depression and suicidality (Miller, DiBello, Merrill, Neighbors, & Carey, 2020; Rosenthal et al., 2018). Fourth, gender differences may obscure relationships between internalizing and subsequent alcohol transitions, with prior work suggesting that early depressive symptoms may be associated with increased risk for later alcohol use and related harms more strongly in girls than boys (Edwards et al., 2014). Finally, we note that the onset of a major depressive episode in the SSAGA was not defined to be independent of drug or alcohol use, which is important to distinguish in future work (Schuckit, Smith, & Kalmijn, 2013).
