In the context of addictive behavior, delay discounting is highly relevant for a number of reasons. At a clinical level, impulsive discounting is a prototypic pattern in substance use disorders and pathological gambling. In other words, alcoholism, heroin addiction, and other forms of addictive behavior all commonly reflect behavioral patterns of dramatically and persistently overvaluing immediate drug rewards at the very high cost of future outcomes for the individual. The second connection between delay discounting and addictive behavior is at a mathematical level, where impulsive discounting may explain self-control failures in individuals with addictive disorders. In behavioral economics, self-control failures are referred to as preference reversals (i.e., person changing their mind about their preference for one option over another), which are very common in the context of addictive disorders. For example, large proportions of individuals with substance use disorders report being motivated to change their behavior and do indeed seek treatment (e.g., Etter, Perneger, & Ronchi, 1997; Hogue, Dauber, & Morgenstern, 2010), but later voluntarily drop out of treatment to resume drug use or relapse despite successfully completing treatment (e.g.,
