Nadia Bowers was pregnant when she learned in July 2015 that her older sister, Sasha, had been found unresponsive in her car in a restaurant parking lot in New Haven, Connecticut. Sasha, who had struggled with addiction for years, died from a fentanyl overdose. Bowers' grief turned into a pursuit to find the dealer who had given Sasha the drugs that led to her death. She details this quest in her memoir, Dear Dealer, in which she writes that she felt she needed to act because “there’s a murderer on the loose.” The book is based on a 2018 episode of This American Life, in which she read a series of letters she had written to Sasha’s imagined drug dealer. Bowers, an actress married to fellow performer Corey Stoll, said that writing those letters was like reaching out to “a twisted pen pal.” As a new mom, she didn’t want her baby to absorb the pain she was feeling. “I had all this anger, but it didn’t belong in the nursery,” Bowers said. She channeled her emotions into writing letters and into a yearslong effort to track down the dealer. In the winter of 2021, another person, Jackie, died from complications due to years of alcohol abuse. She was 40 years old and was found in a hotel in a small town in Colorado. A close friend described feeling anger and a need to know who Jackie had interacted with in her final days. They contacted the police in Colorado, spoke to a friend of Jackie’s, and followed leads to a former boyfriend, who gave them the number of a stranger. The stranger had seen Jackie, but she didn’t know what happened. Heidi Jokipii, a Ph.D. student in health sciences at Finland’s Tampere University, wrote her master’s thesis on the grief and coping processes of siblings following a substance-related death. She noted that many siblings spend a great deal of time trying to make sense of the circumstances surrounding the death, searching for answers and wondering whether they could have done something differently. When questions remain unanswered, it often makes the grieving process more difficult. Stephanie Wittels-Wachs, CEO of Lemonada Media and creator of the podcast Last Day, lost her brother, Harris, to an overdose in 2015. She described the drive to know as the “manic investigative phase.” For Wittels-Wachs, trying to figure out what happened to Harris also became part of the grieving process. “I had nowhere to put my love for him anymore,” she said. “If you can’t actively have them in your life, how can you interact with them? You can investigate it; you can explore it. It keeps the relationship going.” Vanessa Shimer, senior coordinator of marketing and engagement at Shatterproof, lost her brother, James, to a fentanyl overdose in 2019. She called the police department, giving them details about the car the suspected dealer drove, and worked her way backward to try to map out the timeline of James’ final hours. She contacted anyone he spoke to the entire week leading up to his death. She stalked suspected contacts online and found out where they lived. She described herself as becoming “obsessed,” and she still calls the police occasionally to see if there are any new updates. Dr. Lisa Kugler, senior vice president for the Addiction Treatment Locator, Assessment and Standards platform at Shatterproof, says that this common need to play detective can “turn pain to purpose.” Even if we don’t get answers, the research can be meaningful. It can also be detrimental if you let it consume you. Bowers said the idea to write letters to the dealer came pretty quickly after Sasha’s death. She figured she could publish an open letter in the New Haven Register, and maybe the shadowy figure who handed her sister the drugs that took her life would see it. “There was this person out there that had changed my life and hers,” Bowers said. “I wanted to rattle their conscience. You don’t get to just walk away.” Bowers also mentioned meeting with the detective who photographed the scene of Sasha’s death to try to find some answers. The detective posed a question that startled Bowers: What if Sasha took that lethal dose of fentanyl because she didn’t want to wake up? What if it wasn’t a dealer who dealt the blow, but Sasha herself? In the end, Wittels-Wachs shares the eulogy she wrote for Harris. It’s a bittersweet and beautiful way to end the book. In the eulogy, she writes, “I don’t know if I will continue to exist in the world in the same way ever again.” Bowers said that eventually, grief becomes “the thing that ends up giving your life a lot of meaning.” The detective work might not bring answers, but Bowers believes it’s worthwhile, if sleuthing is what you need to do. “Get a monocle and a cool cap,” she said, urging bereaved siblings to channel their inner Sherlock Holmes. “It’s not going to be that way forever. It’s going to transform into something else. The thing you’re looking for is somewhere else, but you have to go through those steps.” When you lose someone suddenly to addiction, finding the “killer” isn’t always the point. The search is fueled by all the love, rage, and helplessness you feel. Death is final, but that pursuit, however futile, keeps the connection alive.