I’m by no means an expert but I’m certain a lot of drugs have physical withdrawal symptoms that can be potentially life threatening to a conscious patient. Them being in a medically induced coma could potentially worsen those effects and make it more dangerous. Medically induced comas are not something that doctors choose lightly, the patient often requires ventilation so they can breath and it hugely lowers blood pressure and heart rate which can be fatal for some patients.

A medically induced coma isn’t some little nap you can take to avoid a bad time. It’s an incredibly risky medical procedure that can kill you or cause brain damage. Especially if your body is already being taxed by withdrawal symptoms.

If you’re talking about alcohol withdrawal, sometimes they will depending on how severe it is.

Usually for withdrawals, they’ll treat it with medications first. If that fails and the patient is having uncontrollable seizures, then they will sedate the patient until the withdrawal window is passed.

However, most of the time withdrawals can be managed with drugs. It sucks for the patient, but they’re not trying to make the withdrawal period pleasant. They’re trying to keep patients alive during that time.

Technically you could, but that’s extremely dangerous. Its as serious medical procedure and you have to be constantly monitored by a team of doctors for days at least.

compare that to withdrawal where you’re usually completely safe and just very uncomfortable. It becomes impossible to justify the expense and the risk.

They will give you Valium or something similar (along with fluids etc) so that you mostly just sleep through it

If you are in the US, I can’t fathom the insurance approvals process or cost of trying to do this.

You can (in some countries), it’s just dangerous and expensive. Medically induced comas are generally a last resort and used for life threatening conditions, where the risk of complication from the coma is outweighed by the benefits. Jordan Peterson, for example, went into a medically induced coma for his benzodiazepine addiction; but this was done in some Russian clinic.

You can, but it’s basically the equivalent of asking “Why don’t we speed up traffic jams by giving everyone on the highway a Formula 1 car?” Yeah, it’ll solve the problem, but it’s a very costly, intensive, and high-risk procedure.

Medically induced comas are not something done unless it’s an absolute necessity. It’s a major medical procedure that carries its own risk. When you have surgery and are put under, you have an anesthesiologist there the whole time, monitoring and adjusting as needed. A medically induced coma is not the exact same thing obviously, but it’s still delicate. Withdrawal can be very traumatic and unpleasant (to put it mildly), but it’s not worth it to be placed into a coma.

Let’s put it this way: Depending on the procedure, many doctors will actively try to avoid general anesthesia if they can, since if the procedure doesn’t require it then it’s not worth the medical risk even for 15-60 minute procedures.

So when it comes to withdrawals, medically speaking you’re basically OK. Unless it’s severe benzodiazepine or alcohol withdrawal which can actually cause physical issues, withdrawals suck but don’t actually pose any physical danger to the patient, therefore general anesthesia is hard to justify. Especially when talking about being under for multiple *days*, it adds an additional layer of risk and medical challenges.