She said it more than once. Said it with the casual authority of someone reading from a file. Said it to thousands of people who had no reason not to believe her.
Okay. Let’s talk about that.
I am an alcoholic. That is not a secret. I have said it in church basements, on live streams, in interviews, and probably more times than people care to hear. Recovery is not something I’ve tried to hide. It’s part of how I got here, wherever here is.
What I am not is a drug addict. And I mean that in the specific, legal, documentable sense: I have never been arrested for cocaine possession. Never been charged with heroin possession. No meth, no fentanyl, no paraphernalia, no narcotics sales, no trafficking, no any of that. Not one time.
So here is my offer, and I mean it sincerely: I will give one thousand dollars to anyone who produces court records showing that I was. Actual documents. Not vibes. Not “everyone knows.” Documents.
I’ll wait.
While we’re waiting, I pulled the public court records on the woman who called me a junkie.
Her name is Andra Lynn Griffin. She was born in 1979. She has forty-four cases in the Manatee County court system spanning from 1995 to 2023. Misdemeanors, felonies, traffic infractions, domestic relations matters, civil cases, criminal traffic. Forty-four.
Before I go further, I want to say something I mean. An arrest is not a conviction. An allegation is not a fact. People carry things in their history that don’t tell the whole story of who they became afterward. I believe that without reservation. My own history depends on it being true.
What follows is not about who she is. It’s about what she said, and what the record shows.
But here is what the public record reflects.
October 25, 2006. Bradenton Police Department. Probable cause affidavit, case number 2006-068494. Andra Lynn Griffin, also known as Bullhorn Betty, was arrested at 1505 14th Street W after a verbal argument at the American Car Wash, where she had been visiting a friend. Officers gave her a verbal trespass warning. She walked out to the sidewalk, then walked back onto the property screaming. When she was placed in handcuffs, a small bag of powder cocaine was found in her pants pocket. In her purse, inside her vehicle, officers found a small bag containing four pills identified as ecstasy. Also in her purse: a scale with cocaine residue on it. The charges were cocaine possession, controlled substance possession without a prescription, drug paraphernalia possession, and trespass after warning. The affidavit notes that she made a spontaneous statement. The exact words used: she knew about the pills, and she has a powder cocaine problem.
That’s not my characterization. That’s the document.
October 13, 2012. Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. Probable cause affidavit, case number 2012CF003652, booking number 12-12078. Domestic battery by strangulation. The victim, her co-habitant, alleged that she became angry and began breaking items in the residence. She allegedly obtained a kitchen knife and cut the tires on his truck. She allegedly pushed him down several times, causing injury to his right forearm. He alleged she punched him in the mouth with her fist, causing bleeding, and that his front teeth became loose. He alleged she then put her hands around his neck and choked him. He stated she told him she would kill herself with the knife, though she did not harm herself at that time. He declined to complete an affidavit because, and this is the paperwork’s language, he can’t write too well. The felony filing is in the public record. Case 2012CF003652.
November 11, 2017. Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. Probable cause affidavit, case number 2017031530. Simple battery. She and her husband, Vincent Edward Vacca, were living together in Bradenton, Florida. They got into a verbal argument. According to Vacca’s statement to deputies, the argument turned physical when she struck him several times in the head area with her hands. Vacca declined EMS. The deputy noted no visible injuries. She was arrested, booked, and issued a no-contact order as a condition of pretrial release, signed by inmate number 17-10109, delivered on 11/11/17.
There is currently a GoFundMe page soliciting donations on her behalf. Thirty thousand dollars is the goal. As of this writing it has raised just over five thousand. The campaign is titled Stand with Betty: Protecting Truth and Freedom.
I’ll give you a moment with that.
The GFM was written by a friend named Sonja Nicley, and it describes Andra Griffin as someone who has spent years fighting for what is right, going where others won’t, searching for answers that matter most, even when those answers are hidden behind doors few are willing to open. It says her only goal has been to seek justice. It says that what’s happening to her isn’t just about her, it’s about the ripple effect these kinds of accusations have on all of us. It invokes the rights that belong to all Americans. It uses the phrase the search for truth without apparent irony.
The search for truth.
This is the woman who looked into a camera and called me a junkie without a document, a record, an arrest report, a booking number, or a single piece of evidence to support it. The woman whose own 2006 arrest affidavit contains, in the arresting officer’s handwriting, her spontaneous statement that she has a powder cocaine problem. The woman with forty-four cases in the Manatee County court system.
She is raising money to protect truth and freedom.
I genuinely don’t know whether to laugh or frame it.
These are public records. The booking numbers, case numbers, fundraisers, and affidavit language are all there for anyone who wants to look.
I am writing this because she made a public accusation with the confidence of someone holding evidence. She wasn’t. She had an opinion and she dressed it up as fact and handed it to thousands of people who had no reason to question her.
She doesn’t have proof. Because there is none. Because it isn’t true.
The woman who called me a junkie has a 2006 arrest affidavit in which she allegedly admitted to having a powder cocaine problem, in her own words, to a Bradenton police officer at the scene of her arrest. She has a 2012 felony filing for domestic battery by strangulation. She has a 2017 battery arrest for hitting her husband in the head. She has forty-four cases total in Manatee County.
Facts are not selective. You don’t get to aim them at other people and then cry foul when they swing back around.
I have never claimed to be a good person in every sense of the word. I have made mistakes. I made a lot of them for a long time. I know exactly what I am and what I’ve done and what I’m still working on.
But junkie isn’t in there. And I need that on record.
Produce the documents. And while you’re looking, remember that yours have been public for nineteen years. The one where the officer took the time to document the open sores covering your body at booking, while she called other people junkies on the internet.
Or don’t.
We both know how this ends. The only question left is whether you figure that out before or after everyone else does.
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