The sex specificity of the MLDA-suicide and MLDA-homicide associations may relate to unique alcohol-related risks faced by women. One of the most thoroughly documented characteristics of suicide is that attempts are more common in women, whereas completions are more prevalent in men (Kessler et al., 1999; Krug et al., 2002; Moscicki, 2001; Weissman et al., 1999). Suicide attempts that occur under the influence of alcohol are more lethal than those not occurring during alcohol use (DeJong et al., 2010; Sher, 2006; Sher et al., 2009). If higher rates of alcohol problems associated with MLDA result in an overall increase in the lethality of suicide attempts, this effect might be more apparent in women than in men, for whom the lethality of suicide is relatively high. A possible sex-specific link between alcohol involvement and homicide is the differential rate of intimate partner violence (Tjaden et al., 2000). Approximately two-thirds of intimate partner violence homicides in the U.S. are perpetrated against women (Karch et al., 2010; Paulozzi et al., 2001) and one in three homicides involving female victims is committed by a
