Alcohol use behaviors (AUBs) encompass a wide variety of normative and problematic aspects of alcohol consumption, including typical drinking frequency and quantity, heavy episodic (binge) drinking, intoxication, experience of alcohol-related problems, and clinically significant alcohol use disorders (AUDs). These behaviors are heritable (1–3), with a complex polygenic architecture influenced by many genetic variants primarily of small individual effect (4, 5). Genes exert their effects through both broad influences on individual predispositions towards impulsive, rewarding behaviors (“externalizing”; EXT), as well as processes specific to AUBs such as alcohol metabolism (2, 6–8). By amassing very large samples, genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have begun to identify the genes that influence both broad EXT and alcohol-specific risk (4, 5, 9). However, these studies usually investigate static AUB measures, and it remains mostly unknown how the associated genetic variants interact with developmental processes.
