better distinguish individuals with and without alcohol problems. Finally, craving is associated with several risk factors among individuals with DSM-IV diagnosed alcohol dependence, including younger age of dependence onset, prior to past year alcohol dependence (suggesting a chronic course), and major depressive disorder. This indicates concurrent validity; craving is correlated with alcohol-associated risk factors with which we would expect an indicator of alcohol problems to be correlated. Note that these analyses are not intended to reveal anything about the etiology of craving per se; we would expect that any construct that captures the alcohol use disorder continuum would be related to these risk factors among those with DSM-IV alcohol dependence.
