There are some limitations to this study. Information on alcohol dependence was not available in the GS:SFHS dataset and therefore we do not know to what extent subjects with alcohol dependence are influencing our analyses. In an independent study, the Scottish Health Survey 2012 found that 21 percent of men and 11 percent of women were classed as hazardous drinkers. However, as we are able to control for alcohol consumption it is unlikely to be a significant confounder, although our measure of alcohol consumption is based on self‐report and potentially underestimated. Another limitation is that the number of individuals in the original GWAS for alcohol dependence was relatively low (SAGE n = 2377, Yale‐Penn n = 2750). Previous studies using PGRS have used GWAS datasets comprising 7000–22 000 individuals (Purcell et al. 2009; McIntosh et al. 2013). However, we were able to find a robust association with alcohol consumption using our risk scores suggesting they are valid tools to investigate the genetic overlap between disorders. The variation in weekly alcohol consumption explained by the alcohol dependence PGRS is low, less
