NOTE: Across New Jersey, hospitals, clinics and treatment centers are providing care to thousands of active-military veterans, and first responders who are dealing with mental health issues.
This is one story in a continuing series about heroes who sought help for their problems and are now actively becoming part of the solution.
Wilfredo Mercado had reached the point of no return.
After a lifetime of drinking, Mercado was sitting in a VA hospital, his heart, by his own description, “racing a mile a minute.” He was shaking uncontrollably.
“Symptoms of alcohol withdrawal,” the doctor told him. In fact, the doctor said, Mercado’s body had become so dependent on alcohol, he could not drink enough to satisfy his body’s craving for it.
Mercado’s symptoms were the result of years of excessive alcohol consumption. Alcohol depresses the body’s central nervous system and slows brain activity. To compensate for these effects, the brain emits neurotransmitters to keep the body in a more awake or energized state.
When the body stops consuming alcohol, the brain’s amped-up activity can continue for some time causing tremors and other physical responses including an elevated heart rate.
“That is when I knew I needed help,” Mercado said. “A social worker came in and told me about a program at Recovery Centers of America for first responders that sounded right for me. When I agreed to go, they would not let me leave, not even to go home to get a change of clothes.”
Mercado’s decision to get help culminated a long and torturous road that began when he took his first drink at the age of 9 or 10, then worsened as he completed military basic training, served in the New York State National Guard and pursued a career in law enforcement – but always with a bottle close by.
“I was a high school dropout,” he said. “I got married young and at the age of 17 and I joined the military.”
Mercado did his basic training at Fort Benning and then joined the 107th Infantry Battalion, a regiment of the New York National Guard. His career there got off to a promising start.
“Within a year, I became a corporal and then I became a supply sergeant at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn,” he recalled. “In the military, downtime was drinking time. Everybody did it. I remember I had my first drink when I was nine or ten, but in the military, I started drinking hard.”
Mercado became a corrections officer in New York City.
“My schedule was to work the afternoon shift – 3 o’clock to 11 o’clock – then go to a bar and drink through the rest of the night. That is when my drinking really got going.”
After a time, Mercado’s drinking and the responsibilities of his job did not mix.
“I was told I had the choice to be terminated or resign. I resigned in February of 1989.”
Mercado went back to the National Guard but the 107th Battalion was disbanded in 1993. Mercado landed a new job as a deputy sheriff in New York City.
“This was another job I would call a drinking job,” Mercado said. “I was drunk most of the time. One night I fell asleep on top of a car with my weapon and my paycheck in my pocket. My family had to come and pick me up. I left that job soon after.”
Mercado found his way back to New York’s Department of Corrections in 1998. “The last five to six years in this job I was straight drunk. I mean I had a full bar stocked in my locker and I became the bartender for the corrections officers.”
Mercado retired from the job in 2021.
“I lived at a bar,” he said of his retirement. “The last two years – I don’t remember anything. I told myself I was drinking my life away.”
The day he was at the VA with the shakes and his heart racing “a mile a minute” would be the day he began to turn his life around.
Mercado was taken to the Recovery Centers of America facility at Raritan Bay in South Amboy. The first responders’ program he entered is called RESCU (Resilience,
Empowerment, Safety and Care for our Uniformed Heroes) and it is an addiction treatment program specifically for active-military, veterans and first responders.
The program essentially immerses patients in a community of fellow military and first responders who have similar life and professional experiences. The program focuses on helping patients recover from substance abuse by addressing professional-related obstacles that could hamper their recovery. The program promises complete anonymity to patients
“This place saved my life,” Mercado says of the Recovery Centers of America. “I came here in April of 2023 and did the 30-day detox program. It worked for me. I have not had a drink since. Every day I tell myself ‘I am not going to drink today.’ I realized I had found a place I could go and I wanted to work here.”
He got his wish.
He began working at the South Amboy facility in January and is now a Recovery Support Specialist. He does the approximate one-hour commute from his home in New York City where he lives with his fiancée Monica Merchan (he and his first wife divorced in 2015). “The commute is worth it. This place is fantastic. What I was given, I have to give back.
“I never realized how much I was hurting people – my family – the ones I love and who love me. It is extremely important that I have learned to be humble and truthful to myself. I am an addict. But alcohol is only a band-aid. After the drinking stops, the problems will still be there, and you have to deal with them.”
