Our analyses highlight the robust genetic association of addiction-rf with serious mental and somatic illness. The addiction-rf PRS was more strongly associated with using drugs to cope with internalizing disorder symptoms (anxiety, depression; rg=0.60–0.62) than with the individual psychiatric traits and disorders themselves (rg=0.3), suggesting that genetic correlations between SUDs and mood disorders may partially be attributable to a predisposition to use substances to alleviate negative mood states (“self-medication”)42.
