Women account for an increasing proportion of individuals arrested for DUI. Arrests of women for DUI rose 31% but decreased 11% for men between 2000 and 2009 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2009). Previous work has shown that women with DUIs are more likely than their male counterparts to report unsuccessful quit attempts, spending a great deal of time drinking or recovering from drinking, continued alcohol use despite family problems and psychological problems, and withdrawal symptoms (McCutcheon et al., 2009). These gender differences suggest more severe alcohol problems among women than men with DUIs, consistent with studies showing higher rates of alcohol dependence among female than male recidivists (Lapham et al., 2006; Laplante et al., 2008). This evidence for gender differences in alcohol problem severity among DUI offenders, combined with scant evidence for gender differences in other high risk samples (Bucholz et al., 1996; Kahler et al., 2003; Schuckit et al., 1998; Wu et al., 2009), suggests that women with DUIs may represent a particularly severe alcohol use phenotype. There is thus a need to test whether the DSM-IV criteria for
