In addition to clinical and phenotypic correlations between substance use disorders (SUD), and suicidal behaviors there is also consistent evidence for genetic overlap between these outcomes, with AUD in particular. Evidence from large scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of both AUD/problematic alcohol use (PAU) (Kranzler et al., 2019; Sanchez-Roige et al., 2019; Walters et al., 2018; Zhou et al., 2023) and suicide attempts (SA) (Docherty et al., 2023; Mullins et al., 2022), reveal robust genetic correlations across these outcomes. And while there are very limited GWASs of suicide attempt in the presence of AUD (Peng et al., 2024), two recent efforts using multivariate approaches which harness existing GWAS have shown that: 1) a shared genetic liability towards all forms of SUD is correlated with suicidal ideation, attempt, and self-injurious behavior, independent of genetic liability towards depression (Colbert et al., 2021), and 2) the shared genetic overlap between AUD and suicide attempts is explained, in part, by underlying liability towards impulsive behaviors (Stephenson et al., 2023).
