Men and women (aged between 21-50 years) seeking treatment for alcohol dependence and socially drinking healthy controls recruited from the community via local advertisements were evaluated for study participation. Individuals meeting DSM-IV criteria for current alcohol dependence were admitted to the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit of the Connecticut Mental Health Center for 4 to 6 weeks of inpatient treatment and research participation. Thirty-six of a total of 93 alcohol-dependent individuals studied were carefully matched to 36 healthy controls on age, race, sex, and years of education and composed the sample for study 1 (Table 1). The control group reported drinking up to 25 drinks or less per month (<7 drinks/wk) and did not meet current or lifetime abuse or dependence criteria for alcohol or any other illicit drug and had documented multiple negative urine toxicology screen results on admission. Individuals currently using opiates or who ever met criteria for opiate dependence and those taking medications for any current psychiatric (including prescribed or unprescribed anxiolytics) or medical condition were excluded. Women were excluded from the study if they were using hormonal
