I take it you view drug / gambling addicts not as people with a mental health issue making irrational decisions, but rather fully rational people that prefer "short-term pleasure over long-term stability"?
Absolutely. People make rational decisions to fulfill the motivations they actually have. But sometimes people, being complex creatures, have multiple conflicting motivations, where fulfilling one impedes another, which leads to psychological and emotional distress. So mental health does come into it, but as a matter of reconciling conflicting parts of ones own psyche, not as a matter of overcoming irrationality.
Or, to put it another way, the irrationality is a matter of having contradictory desires in the first place; choosing to act upon one and dismiss the other resolves the irrationality. The fact that some people make the trade-off in the opposite direction that you would doesn't make them irrational, it just demonstrates that people are different.
Or, to put it another way, the irrationality is a matter of having contradictory desires in the first place; choosing to act upon one and dismiss the other resolves the irrationality. The fact that some people make the trade-off in the opposite direction that you would doesn't make them irrational, it just demonstrates that people are different.