Sid: My guests are red are red are hot for the Messiah. Clarice and Ronnie Holden, I’m speaking to the by way of telephone at their home in Shallotte, NC. Ronnie you were addicted to drugs and alcohol, you had a restaurant business, and things were really in trouble. Why did you decide to go, FINALLY, to a rehabilitation center?
Ronnie: Basically because I knew I was going to die. I had tried so many things to get off the cocaine, I drank constantly, and I had tried so many times.
Sid: Were you a Christian?
Ronnie: No I wasn’t.
Sid: Why not?
Ronnie: That was the farthest thing from my mind. I thought I was really a strong person. The people who went to church I thought they were weak, and the church was a crutch to them…
Sid: Wwwwwwell your wife was a Christian didn’t that mean something to you?
Ronnie: I made fun of her going to church she went to a nondenominational church.
Sid: Clarice did you have any faith that your husband would one day get off of drugs and be red hot for Jesus? Did you believe for that?
Clarice: I certainly did Sid. I hung onto that faith that one day our home would be whole.
Sid: You told me you even had a prophecy that you hung onto. What was that prophecy?
Clarice: This guy gave me a word he said “The last 3 years has been really bad, but the next 3 years is going to be a living hell.” I just…
Sid: Oy vey, who would want a word like that (Laughing)?
Clarice: “But your husband will be on his deathbed. He will be alone and he will have a divine visitation from God, and your house will be saved.”
Sid: My goodness the presence of God is on you just repeating that prophecy. Okay, Ronnie you reached your wits end, you’re suicidal, you determine you’re gonna go into a rehab program. What happened next?
Ronnie: I went into rehab, and it took over 2 weeks for the treatment to get me off of cocaine. The prescription drugs I was taking had DT’s…
Sid: Now that had… I had never been on drugs fortunately, but I understand it is really hard to get off of cocaine.
Ronnie: It’s hard to get off of it, and it’s something you can’t do on your own. Even rehabs, they help people and people who don’t have God, if God doesn’t deliver them, it’s a struggle for them all their lives. Fortunately, you know I got down on my knees one night. I have already gone to AA…
Sid: But you weren’t a Christian what were you doing on your knees?
Ronnie: Well I had come to the end of my rope. I said “Well let me try this I tried everything else.” I bought all these books on religion on Zen; I had been so many places tried to change my life. I had made changes in what I did, my routine thinking it “I won’t go out, I won’t get out with these people, I won’t go do drugs tonight,” and I still did. I would Valium and different medicines to try and put me to bed so I would sleep and not go anywhere. I got where I would get up and wouldn’t be aware of it, and put my clothes on and leave home, and wake-up 2 or 3 days later somewhere else. I didn’t know which way to turn. One night I had been gone 2 or 3 days, and I remember the sun coming up, and I felt so bad. I said “I have to go home and face my wife.” I had an idea what to do, I said “I’m just gonna kill myself. There’s no way out of this, I’ll never get off of this.” I had seen this sign it was rehab one time, it just came to my mind. I went home after a long discussion with my wife I had decided to go to rehab because I knew I had a problem. So I went there, and after a couple of weeks of them trying to get me off of the drugs. My minds clear enough to start going to meetings at AA, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Start talking about a higher power, I remember thinking to myself “We’ll you know that’s not a far stretch to know that there’s someone smarter than I am. I was the dumbest person in the world; I thought I was the strongest; I just destroyed my life. I could be so far ahead of where I am now, and now you know I’m ready to kill myself. So I got down on my knees and I said “God if your real I’m gonna die. You’re the only hope that I have I’ve tried everything else, if you’re real I have got have some help, but you’ve got to show me something. I just can’t go on a word of what people tell me, or what I read. I’ve got to see something real to know that you’re in my life.” I prayed like for 3 days and nights, off and on that same prayer. February 17th this one night I woke up about 3:00 in the morning, and I’m not really sure how it happened, I remember looking up and the whole room was completely white, like clouds were in the room. This person was standing over the bed, and to me He looked like when I was a little boy I saw pictures of Jesus He had His robe on. He had a blue robe with a white belt tied around Him. His hands were sticking out towards me, and He just looked at me and it was over with. I prayed and I went back to sleep for an hour or two. I woke up and I didn’t know what was going on. I went outside, I went through the door, I saw a tree and it was like I had never seen anything before. The trees looked different everything looked different around me. I started thinking about cocaine, about drugs. I got sick, I got nauseated, and I wanted to throw up. God delivered me of it right then of the alcohol and the drugs.
Sid: Clarice tell me what it was like when your husband told you for the first time what had happened to him.
Clarice: Well I got a call from him, and he was not able to call me. He said “I want you to bring me a Bible.” I said “A Bible?” He did, he said “I need to talk to you.” So I went down that weekend, and I took him a Bible. He told me what happened. I was just blown away I just could not believe that’s just how it happened. I still hung onto that prophecy that I had. To me at that time when I received it it was so far out there that I didn’t ever see how it could come to pass because my husband would not speak to a Christian. He did not want to be around them, and he did not go to church. I said “God how are you going to save him?” He did, He did just what He said He would do. He had a divine visitation from God. It miraculously just changed his life, and mine as well.
Sid: Well you were just getting by because you were doing most of the work in the restaurant from what he told me. It seems as though the flood-gates of heaven opened over both of you, and you were blessed in everything you touched, especially in the business arena. What was going on
Clarice: It was as dry as it could be. You know when Ronnie got his head straight, and we got our life together straight, and we started going to church together, and listening to the word of God. Getting ahold of the word, where we need to tithe, and we started doing that. A guy came to our church, I never forgot this, and he told us “You pray for God to give you ideas in business.” Ronnie caught hold of that word and he just started praying for ideas. He just started changing things in the restaurant, and it just started changing overnight. It was wonderful and it has been good ever since.
Sid: According to my notes it was better than wonderful, you had 2 yachts, 4 planes, an estate, your business was doing wonderful. Clarice you even opened up a boutique
Clarice: I did, and we did that in 85. We built a shopping center, and I opened up a boutique and God’s blessed us there.
Sid: And everything is going so fantastic Ronnie, but then I’m going to speed you forward a bit to May 8, 2000. What was going on in your life Ronnie?
Ronnie: Well I was at the restaurant it was on Sunday night the year 2000, and we had closed. I had started home and my home was like 12 miles from the restaurant. My wife was in New York, she had gone on a buying trip for the clothing store. I drove through an intersection and I don’t remember what happened. They told me this drunk driver was going like 80 mph, and he ran through a stop sign and hit me in the driver’s door. He hit me with such force that he broke the seatbelt from the back of the seat and threw me the passenger window. The car rolled, it was an SUV, and it rolled over and stopped on its side right before it rolled over on top of me. My neck was broken, my leg was crushed…
Sid: It sounds to me like it was a miracle that it didn’t roll on top of you, and that would’ve been the end of Ronnie.
Ronnie: Absolutely it was.
Sid: What stopped that car from rolling over on you?
Ronnie: Well I imagine it was the angels stopping it.
Sid: Well that it was I would believe too. Clarice what did the doctor say about your husband, what chance did he of surviving?
Clarice: Well at the beginning he had a fairly good chance because they didn’t know everything that was wrong with him because him; yes he did have his neck broken in 2 places, and he had all the damage to his stomach and liver, and spleen and all of that. His leg was broken in 15 places, but they thought that he would survive it. Then after 7 days of being in the hospital Ronnie got progressively worse. They said to me you know he got irrational. I would be talking to him, and he would make good sense then all of a sudden he would not make any sense. Finally I said “There is something wrong, somebody has got to do something.” It was Mother’s day Sunday morning, and I had dosed very early that morning, and I just woke up and Ronnie is out of the bed with this halo on and he is going home. I knew something terribly was wrong, so I immediately called the nurse and I said “You have to get the doctor in here, something is wrong.” They wanted to tell me Ronnie had brain damage, but I would not accept that. They finally got a doctor there and he came in and I said “Somebody’s got to an MRI, a CAT scan or something.” They said “Well we did that,” but they finally did another one. When they did the doctor comes running down the hall, he says “We’ve got an emergency; we’ve got to operate on him right now. He has a crack in his intestines and he is septic. His whole body is being poisoned and he will not make it unless we do the surgery.
Sid: Listen the results were even worse after the surgery.
