Fighting Alcohol Craving Using Virtual Reality: the Role of Social Interaction

Craving is a cause of relapse in patients suffering from a substance use disorder. Cue-exposure therapy builds on eliciting feelings of craving in patients in safe and controlled environments to condition them to control these feelings. Different efficient and resource-friendly methods of eliciting craving exist, (such as written material, still pictures, etc.). However, these methods create knowledge and skill transfer gaps between therapy sessions and real life scenarios. Virtual reality allows more true-to-life experiences, and research demonstrates its capabilities in eliciting craving in patients. Studies have identified different environments that elicits craving, suggesting bars to be one of the most effective ones. Research also suggests the presence of others to be an effective method of eliciting craving in users. However, the effect of social interaction has not yet been explored. Therefore, this paper presents a virtual bar with the purpose to investigate whether social interaction affects alcohol craving in users. The VR intervention is designed with close cooperation with a psychiatrist experienced in working with individuals suffering from alcohol use disorder. In this paper, we present the designed and developed VR intervention and discuss how an experiment can be conducted after the COVID-19 shutdowns.