Virtual Reality ‘Heroin Cave’: A New High-tech Tool to help Addicts Kick?

For many, the idea of virtual reality conjures up images of computer games or other “frivolous” pursuits. But the technology that recreates detailed and highly realistic images and scenarios may have valuable practical application in drug treatment and recovery.

As we’ve noted previously, technological innovations are increasingly being harnessed to advance addiction research. Now, researchers at the University of Houston are using a virtual reality ‘Heroin Cave’ program to study triggers, coping mechanisms, and identify helpful interventions for heroin and opiate addicts.

In this latest response to skyrocketing opiate addiction and overdose rates, addicts are donning virtual reality headsets and being asked to navigate a “heroin cave” in order to help them better respond to environmental cues or triggers and strengthen their real-world recovery. In the “heroin cave,” addicts are immersed in a detailed and hyper-realistic virtual environment. They work their way through a computer-simulated house party where they are bombarded by stimuli and triggers. As they do so, researchers are assessing craving responses and developing methods to decrease those cravings and occurrences of relapse.

The virtual environments, a house party where the drug is snorted and one where it is injected, took nearly a year to complete to ensure realism. Details from an open pizza box on the back patio to cash tossed on a table next to a cigarette lighter are meant to stimulate powerful associations users often have with heroin, scoring a fix, and seeing others around them using. All of these things may prompt a desire to use.

The virtual reality setup comes to life through the use of an eight-camera infrared system that projects life-sized 3D avatars and environments that participants interact with using their headsets. The simulated environment is said to feel “highly realistic” and the avatars actively engage with the participant, coaxing them to use drugs. Importantly, therapists are observing the participants as they make their way through the “heroin cave” and talking them through the process, providing important coping strategies along the way.

Patrick Bordnick, an Associate Dean of Research at the university and one of the study’s leaders says the ‘Heroin Cave’ experiment takes therapeutic role-playing to a whole new level and may help participants more effectively transition from a treatment environment to a home setting that for many is more stressful and filled with temptation. “In traditional therapy, we role-play with the patient but the context is all wrong. They know they’re in a therapist’s office and the drug isn’t there. We need to put patients in realistic virtual reality environments and make them feel they are there with the drug, and the temptation, to get a clearer picture and improve interventions,” said Bordnick.

The results of this latest high-tech experiment remain to be seen, but there are some reasons to be hopeful. Bordnick and his colleagues have also conducted studies that used virtual reality to help clients struggling with nicotine addiction. These studies have shown positive results. Outcomes indicated that participants who learn coping skills in virtual environments report a higher level of confidence to resist temptation in the real world. And researchers in South Korea recently reported encouraging results using virtual technology and exposure therapy to help alcoholics remain sober in the early stages after detox.

Perhaps as important as the early promise shown by these new high-tech studies is what they suggest about the necessity of having a sound plan and key tools in place as one transitions from treatment to real-life settings. People in early recovery need a well-thought-out relapse prevention plan – and role-playing in high-risk situations is often helpful in testing and solidifying that plan. But taking advantage of other transitional measures and programs like sober living homes and continuing group therapy is also key.

The better prepared those in recovery are to deal with life on life’s (sometimes challenging) terms, the more successful they will be in staying sober and happy. Check out BTG’s transitional programs as well as Intensive Outpatient offerings that can help clients coming back to Virginia after extended treatment elsewhere.