Addiction: the place of relaxation during treatment

People in residential treatment for alcohol or other substance dependence spend long days in a closed setting, with rules, far from home and often with their body reacting to the absence of the substance. Anxiety, irritability, sleep that won't come and boredom are part of those days. And they are often the moments when the urge to give up appears.

Virtual reality has been studied in addiction in two very different ways. One fits what RVer does today; the other does not. This article is for teams in therapeutic communities, detox units and psychiatric services who want to understand the difference.

Two different things with the same name

When people talk about virtual reality and addiction, they almost always mean one of these approaches:

• Relaxation. Calm environments — a forest, a beach, a river — seen in 360° video, to help the person manage anxiety and stress during treatment. It does not touch the dependence itself; it touches the state in which the person gets through the day.
• Cue exposure. Scenes that deliberately show what triggers the urge to use — a bar, a party, a glass — so that the person can practise, with a therapist, ways of dealing with that urge. It is a psychotherapeutic technique, with its own growing body of research.

RVer's base product does the first and not the second. Cue exposure is the kind of work the RVer Exposure module is intended for; that module is in development and is not covered by the device's registration. We do not offer it.

What the studies on relaxation say

The research is still small, but it exists and is of reasonable quality. Two examples from the study library, neither of them carried out with RVer:

• A randomised controlled trial with 60 people in detox at a residential centre (Lotfinia and colleagues, 2024, Brain and Behavior). Participants were split into three groups: a 360° nature video, a 360° city video and no virtual experience. Only the nature group showed changes on the psychological scales and significant drops in physiological stress signals such as skin conductance and breathing rate. The study assessed a single session.
• A pilot study with 34 inpatients on a psychiatric unit for substance use disorders (Barrio and colleagues, 2025, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction). After a session with nature environments, anxiety and negative mood went down and positive mood went up. The intervention was considered easy to use, with minimal adverse effects. With no control group, the authors treat the results as preliminary.

The first study has a detail that matters to anyone choosing content: being virtual reality is not enough. The city video did not have the same effect as the nature one. What you show matters as much as the equipment.

Choosing what to show

In an addiction unit, choosing the scene is a clinical decision, not a detail. Some practical rules:

• Nature first. Forest, sea, river, countryside. Calm environments, without fast camera movement.
• Watch the whole video beforehand. A seafront walk may pass a terrace full of glasses; a village festival may have a beer stall. What is harmless for a care home resident can be a trigger here.
• Avoid places linked to using. Bars, clubs, parties, stadiums, and also the places the person themselves associates with using. The team that knows the person's history knows which ones.
• Use a library chosen by the clinical team, not the open internet. RVer works with content stored on the device and selected in advance; the thinking is in a validated library.

How a session can go

• Seated, short and accompanied. The studies above used a single session; you don't need more to start. A professional always stays alongside and follows what the person is seeing in the Companion app.
• At the right time. An hour of higher anxiety — late afternoon, before bed, after a difficult group session — and not during withdrawal symptoms that need medical care.
• With the person deciding. Explain what they will see, say they can stop at any moment, accept a no.
• Take it off at the first sign of discomfort. Dizziness and nausea may be cybersickness; the signs are in comfort and motion sickness. Rising anxiety is also a reason to stop.
• Record it. What was watched, for how long, how the person was before and after. That is what lets the team see whether it is helping that person.

Who can run sessions, and with what training, is covered in who can run a session.

What virtual reality does not do

It does not treat the dependence, it does not reduce cravings and it does not replace psychotherapy, medication or group work. A relaxation session is a complement: it helps manage the anxiety and stress of a treatment day, the way a walk, a breathing technique or music can.

Nor is it for everyone. Some people find a headset on their face more anxiety-provoking than relaxing, and with some psychiatric presentations the clinical team may prefer not to use virtual reality. The difference between using the technology for wellbeing and using it as therapy is set out in virtual reality and mental health: two different things.

Where RVer fits

RVer brings to the unit a library of 360° videos that includes nature environments, a configured headset and the Companion app, with which the professional chooses the scene and sees what the person is seeing. Everything works without internet and nothing leaves the device. Each session is logged for the team. Use in addiction services is the same as in other settings: accompanied relaxation, as a complement to treatment, never exposure to substance cues.

In summary

• In addiction, virtual reality has been studied for relaxation and for cue exposure; they are different things.
• RVer's base product does accompanied relaxation; cue exposure belongs to the RVer Exposure module, in development and outside the registration.
• A trial with 60 people in detox and a pilot with 34 inpatients found less stress and anxiety after 360° nature sessions.
• Content matters: in the trial, the nature video worked and the city one did not.
• Choosing scenes free of substance cues is a clinical decision.
• It is a complement; it does not treat the dependence or reduce cravings.

This article is for information only and does not replace clinical assessment. If you need help with a dependence, speak to your doctor or a local addiction service; in an emergency, call 112 (Europe) or your local emergency number.

RVer is a virtual reality system for clinical use designed for healthcare settings, whose base product is registered as a Class I Medical Device in EUDAMED (Basic UDI-DI 56006195127RVERTZ) and with INFARMED (Portugal, CDM 94571546) and bears the CE mark under MDR 2017/745. The RVer Motion, RVer Neuro and RVer Exposure modules are in development and are not covered by that registration.