Rupp CI, et al. - This study prospectively investigated the impact of social cognition on alcohol use disorder (AUD) at treatment onset and on treatment completion. In AUD, social cognition was clinically relevant. At the beginning of treatment, less successful treatment outcome was correlated with poorer facial emotion recognition ability. A neurocognitive risk factor was represented by impaired facial emotion recognition that needed to be taken into account in alcohol dependence treatment. Treatments targeting the improvement of these social cognition deficits in AUD could offer a promising future approach.