Alcohol also has an extensive history as a substanceused in response to pain, and epidemiological data substantiate a high co-occurrence of pain and alcoholuse.32 For example, past-month pain is highly prevalentamong individuals seeking treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD; e.g., 73%),33 and chronic pain patients areup to 60% more likely to endorse heavy drinking and/or meet diagnostic criteria for AUD, even after accounting for concurrent psychopathology and other substanceuse problems.34–36 Although there is some evidence thatdrinking alcohol can confer short-term pain inhibition,such effects may require consumption at doses that exceedguidelines for moderate daily use, and the development oftolerance would likely require more alcohol to achievethe same degree of acute analgesia.37 There is also converging evidence38 that periods of abstinence followingchronic alcohol consumption tend to be associatedwith increased sensitivity to pain, which in turn couldpromote relapse to drinking. Alcohol is mood-alteringand addictive, thus physicians do not recommend thatpatients use alcohol to treat either acute or chronic pain