May 6, 2008 (Washington, DC) - Depressive symptoms in women, but not men, correlated with alcohol craving in an early retrospective study of over 300 patients who were self-referred for an alcohol addiction treatment program at the Mayo Clinic. The study was presented in a poster at the American Psychiatric Association 161st Annual Meeting. On admission to the treatment program, compared with the men, women also had higher depressive-symptom and alcohol-craving scores. This was true for subjects with a clinical diagnosis of alcohol dependence alone as well as those with a dual diagnosis, which was defined as alcohol dependence plus depression, bipolar disorder, or anxiety disorder.It appears that the women are drinking to relieve anxiety and to relieve depression, whereas the men might be drinking just to feel good, for a positive feeling, lead study author Nelli Boykoff, from the University of California, San Francisco, California, told