Our study is not without limitations. AUDIT specifically asks about the past year, and thus may not capture information on lifetime alcohol use and misuse. This is suboptimal for genetic studies because it effectively measures a recent state rather than a stable trait. Measures capturing drinking and AUD across the lifespan may be preferable. Also, although mean scores for the AUDIT-C dimension were 4.24, the mean of the AUDIT-P dimension was considerably lower (0.75). Thus, we were not able to perform a more refined categorization (e.g. 3 subsets: consumption [items 1–3], dependence [items 4–6], hazardous use [items 7–10]) as fewer individuals endorsed the items comprising AUDIT-P (see Supplementary Table 7). Furthermore, our study uses data from UKB and 23andMe research participants, who were volunteers not ascertained for AUD, and hence our findings may not generalize to other populations showing higher rates of alcohol use and dependence. Additional alcohol-related phenotypes (e.g. age at first use; patterns of alcohol drinking, including binge drinking) could be used in subsequent genetic studies to identify additional sources of genetic vulnerability for AUD. Lastly, we offered
