HEALTH AND WELLNESS
JUST BELIEVE: A CANVAS FOR MODERN-DAY MIRACLES For most of us, miracles are few and far between. (At least the ones we’re consciously aware of, that is). But for Cindy Bellino, they’ve become a rhythm of her life. They’re the one thing she can depend on when she wakes up each morning.
However, she soon found out that she did, in fact, have a problem with addiction. And after a couple of years of relapsing, she once again committed to a life of recovery. The Just Believe CEO has now been sober for 15 years consecutively (and 25.5 of the past 27 years).
“I enjoy seeing the miracles happen,” Bellino says with the gritty confidence of someone who has had her fair share of desolate stretches that were, at times, absent of the kind of hope she now gets to witness on a regular basis.
“Today, I couldn’t even imagine not living this way,” Bellino says with the kind of conviction that’s only possible when you’ve been given a second chance at life.
“Every day, I see miracles. I see the light come on. The spirit comes alive.” Bellino is the CEO of Just Believe, a drug and alcohol recovery center with locations in Florida and Pennsylvania. And for the better part of a decade, she’s been helping people walk through addiction – a battle that she herself is all too familiar with. From Palm Beach to Pennsylvania, she plays daily witness to hope, transformation, and life change. When most of her peers are thinking about settling down into lives of comfort and leisure – a retirement community is the furthest thing from Bellino’s mind. She’s in the middle of the greatest work of her life and doesn’t plan on forgoing the miracles anytime soon. From Addict to Ally: A Shift Decades in the Making In the early-1990s, Bellino found herself in the throes of addiction. But through a series of events, she understood the need to get sober. And for the past 27 years, she’s been in recovery. While she’s spent nearly three decades of her life in recovery, she admits they haven’t all been consecutive. When she was in early recovery, it came very easy and, like many addicts, she thought she might not have a true “problem.” So after eight years of being clean, Bellino figured she could ease back into some of the crutches of her past life. 20 MKR Magazine February 2022
Though her recovery story has spanned nearly 30 years, it wasn’t until the age of 56 – after losing everything she owned in her entire life and being so broke that she “couldn’t even buy a loaf of bread” – that she realized her life calling. While Bellino may have a history of addiction and, like any addict, has to actively work to fight the disease on a daily basis, she’s very clear on who she is. She’s not just a recovering addict; she’s an ally. And with three adult children, 10 grandchildren, and two great grandchildren, her “why” has never been more clear. “What can I do to help families so that they don’t have to be separated? Our society today is a mess, and millions of children are growing up in messy situations,” Bellino laments. “These kids really don’t have a shot, unless [someone] steps in.” Bellino is too self-aware to see her team as heroes or miracle workers, per se, but they certainly get to be daily firsthand witnesses to the miracles. And whether it’s in sunny Florida or the snow-dusted foothills of Pennsylvania, she’s rejuvenated and motivated by the thought of keeping families together. Just Believe: A Safe Place for Healing Just Believe is more than just a recovery center. It’s a place where people go to turn addiction into long-term, life-changing sobriety that has a generational impact on families and communities. Bellino describes Just Believe as her “heart put into words
