Male C57BL/6J mice purchased from Jackson Laboratories (Bar Habor, ME) or bred in our laboratory, weighing 21–29 g, were used in all the studies detailed here. For the DID experiments (Experiments 1 and 2), the mice were housed 5 per cage for one week after arrival and then housed individually and acclimated to a shifted light/dark cycle (lights on at 9 pm, lights off at 9 am) before the experiment was begun. The DID procedure, leading to blood ethanol concentrations (BECs) greater than 100 mg% and behavioral signs of intoxication, was developed based on substantially higher alcohol intake at peak times of activity during the dark phase of the circadian cycle in mice (Rhodes et al., 2005; Ryabinin et al., 2003; Sharpe et al., 2005). Specifically, in Experiment 1 we used a two-bottle choice DID procedure, where the mice were given access to 15% ethanol and water, and in Experiment 2 we used a single-bottle (of 20% ethanol) no-choice procedure standardized as a model of excessive alcohol consumption by Rhodes et al. (2005; 2007). In a standard single-bottle DID procedure,
