Our investigation extends the literature on the contribution of adverse childhood experiences to the manifestation of genetic liability to alcohol problems by examining risk variants associated with alcohol dependence – rarely the subject of GxE investigations in this area – in a large sample with greater representation of African-Americans and women than prior GxE studies of alcohol phenotypes. The ADH1B SNPs that we investigated, the most significant ADH1B SNPs identified in a GWAS of alcohol dependence conducted with this sample (rs2066702 in the AA subsample, rs1229984 in the EA subsample), predicted both AUD symptoms and maxdrinks (when analyzed across sex), indicating that the effects are not specific to an extreme alcohol phenotype. Childhood adversity also predicted maxdrinks in AA women, AA men, and EA women as well as AUD symptoms in African-Americans, a noteworthy finding given the high rate of exposure to adverse childhood events and the heaviness of alcohol consumption in the sample. Finally, we found support for an interaction effect of rs1229984 with childhood adversity on AUD symptoms exclusively in EA men. Specifically, the A allele’s protective effects
