The current paper presents a survey on virtual reality applications and analyses their utility as tools for learning how to overcome addictions, thus improving one's quality of life. Even though there are various treatments through therapy or medication, there are not enough methods to cover all the addictions in the world. There are addictions such as alcohol, drugs or tobacco that are given more attention due to the increasing number of people who develop them, but special attention must be paid to others such as sugar, coffee, gambling, work, etc. In most cases, specialists believe that detoxification or group/individual therapy are more than enough, but the risk of their addictions returning is still present. To improve patients' quality of life and prevent the aforementioned risk, we need new and innovative psychotherapeutic methods. Virtual reality is a subject with a continuous growth trend, through which real-life environments can be created. We will make an analysis of the current methods of treatment, but also of the already existing applications in VR dealing with the study and treatment of addictions, in order to see the concept behind their mechanism and the possibility of their usage in a medical environment. Following the analysis, we will design a virtual reality application model that contains certain dependencies that it should address, including the principles on which they are based.

addiction treatment; virtual reality; neuroscience; quality of life improvement