association was stronger with certain DSM-IV AD criteria. Consistent with Hart et al., Tolerance was strongly associated with rs1229984 (p=8.06E-09 in EA+AA). However, the additional GWS associations with Desire to cut drinking in our study differs from the prior study which used a sequential regression approach to identify Withdrawal and Drinking more than intended as additional criteria related to rs1229984 in EA, and Time spent drinking in AA. However, another study of 1,130 individuals of Jewish descent reported associations between rs1229984 and both Tolerance and Desire to cut drinking 50. Across these studies, the most robust association signal for rs1229984 appears to arise from Tolerance, which is notably an index of excessive consumption and consistent with the role of ADH1B in other studies of non-problem alcohol intake 51. Plausibly, the strong findings with Desire to cut drinking might also support this as epidemiological studies have shown this criterion to index liability to less severe AD (Supplemental Table 2; Supplemental Figure 7), and therefore, serve as a marker of excessive drinking, rather than severe pathology and impairment 10,52-54. Differences in associations with other criteria could stem from the relative severity of individual criteria in each dataset or their relationship with excessive
