Alcohol dependence is one of the most common and costly diseases worldwide. In the United States, 12.5% of the population meets criteria for alcohol dependence during their lifetime (Hasin & Grant, 2015), and about 88,000 deaths and 2.5 million years of potential life lost annually are attributable to excessive alcohol use (Stahre, Roeber, Kanny, Brewer, & Zhang, 2014). The estimated economic cost attributable to excessive drinking is almost $250 billion (Sacks, Gonzales, Bouchery, Tomedi, & Brewer, 2015).
