Subjects were selected from the ongoing Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA), a multi-site national consortium. The consortium is composed of six data collection centers, located at: State University of New York – Downstate Medical Center; University of Connecticut Health Center; Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis; University of California at San Diego; University of Iowa; and Indiana University Medical School. Alcoholic families were recruited through probands from inpatient and outpatient treatment facilities, and they and their family members were interviewed with the Semi Structured Assessment of the Genetics of Alcoholism (SSAGA) to determine psychiatric diagnoses. A detailed description of the COGA recruitment and assessment procedures has been described previously (Begleiter et al., 1995; Bucholz et al., 1994; Hesselbrock et al., 1999). For comparison, and to obtain a representative sample of the general population, control families were recruited from HMOs, drivers’ license records, and dental clinics at each site. The control families were interviewed with the SSAGA, and underwent the same full protocol as COGA family members. The time period of the data collection was from 1993 to 2003.
