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A Contagious Smile Podcast
Stop surviving and start thriving. A Contagious Smile is a globally ranked podcast providing a safe haven for abuse survivors and special needs families navigating the journey of trauma recovery. Whether you are healing from domestic violence, narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma, or the daily challenges of disability advocacy, our mission is to turn your pain into power.
Each episode features raw, authentic conversations with survivors, mental health experts, and advocates who share actionable resources for PTSD healing, resilience building, and emotional wellness. We go beyond the struggle to highlight the triumphs of the special needs community, offering support for caregivers and individuals with disabilities who are rewriting their own narratives.
Hosted by Victoria Cuore, an award-winning trauma advocate and survivor, this podcast delivers the "blueprints" for recovery—not just Band-Aids. Join our community to find hope, humor, and the unstoppable spirit needed to rekindle your inner light.
Episodes
388 episodes
How Matthew Dixon Recovered From Schizophrenia And Biked Across Canada
A schizophrenia diagnosis can feel like your life has been rewritten without your consent, and the hardest part is often the unknown: Will I get better, will I ever feel like myself again, and who will still see me as me? We talk with Matthew D...
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When A Stranger Shares A Dark Secret
A guy offers to help us move a table and chairs, and for a few minutes it feels like a normal neighborly moment. Then, out of nowhere, he mentions multiple felonies and casually claims he got caught trying to kill his wife. That single sentence...
This Is What It Takes with Special Guest Rebecca Tuoni. Unbreakable Caregivers
The fastest way to feel powerless is to sit in a hospital room while someone talks about your child like a “case” instead of a person. So we invited two caregivers who refuse to be sidelined: my co-host Victoria Cure and attorney and longtime a...
A Life Built On Miracles, Work Ethic, And Showing Up with Very Special Guest, Amir Arison
One family’s survival story collides with a working actor’s hard-earned truth, and the result is a conversation that feels both cosmic and deeply practical. We talk about what it means to keep showing up through domestic violence recovery, medi...
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Brave Conquer Fear Interview with Cheryl Preheim of NBC 11Aive and Faith
Someone once told Faith’s family to “keep her comfortable and let her go.” That moment could have been the end of the story, but it became the start of a lifelong practice of choosing courage, refusing limits, and turning pain into help for oth...
This Is What It Takes with Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore. People Stop Seeking Help When The System Stops Listening
The moment “help” makes you feel smaller, unheard, or more afraid, something in the system has already failed. We sit with the uncomfortable reality that mental health care and hospital care can retraumatise the very people they are meant to su...
Why We Go Off Script And Talk Real Life
A show can be funny and still hit like a truth bomb. Michael and Victoria keep Contagious Smiles unscripted on purpose, because real life doesn’t come with neat transitions, and neither does healing. We talk openly about why our conversations m...
Why Families Get Lost In Healthcare Systems And How To Fight Back with Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore
Healthcare can make you feel like you’re doing everything “right” while the system keeps moving the goalposts. We’re tired of families being told to stitch together courtrooms, hospitals, crisis teams, and insurance rules like it’s a normal Tue...
A Mother Remembers Her Son And Rebuilds Life After Opioid Loss with Katie Rizzo
One phone call, one prescription, one quiet apartment, and a life splits into before and after. We sit down with Katie Rizzo, a former high school anatomy and AP biology teacher, to talk about the loss of her firstborn son Nicholas to opioid ad...
Ripple Retreat with guest JJ Holley, A Veteran who lives to pay it forward
A quiet town in Maine. A historic 1830s farmhouse and barn. A veteran with seven years of sobriety and a plan that flips the usual “tourism takes from locals” story on its head. We brought back our friend JJ Holly to do something different: a w...
A New Partnership For Trauma-Informed Mental Health Support with Michael Mackniak
The scariest part of a mental health crisis isn’t always the symptoms. It’s the moment you realise nobody is talking to each other and your loved one is getting treated like a problem instead of a person. We sit down with veteran attorney and c...
Leaving An Abusive Relationship Starts With A Safety Plan
“Why don’t you just leave?” gets thrown at survivors like it’s a simple fix, so we slow it down and tell the truth. We’re Stucco, Rusty, Sexy Victoria, and Michael, and we talk through what actually keeps people in abusive relationships: isolat...
TikTok Toilets And A Very Bad Diastat Day
One phone call can flip your whole world. We start with real life and real laughs, then move into the kind of story that makes your stomach drop: what happens when a school says your child had a medical emergency, but the timeline and the paper...
What If Overworking Is A Trauma Reflex
Burnout does not always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like answering messages at midnight, working seven days a week, and telling yourself you will rest after the next task. We get honest about what happens when your life becomes ...
Five Packs Of Grits And A Side Of Reality
A blood test can be louder than any argument, and we start there: Michael’s A1C comes back at a 9, and suddenly “I’ll deal with it later” is not an option. We talk candidly about diabetes, cravings, and the awkward first days of a lifestyle cha...
Friending: A Real-World Cure For Loneliness
Loneliness doesn’t always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like a full contact list, nonstop group chats, and a Friday night with nobody to actually meet. We sit down with Gaborg, co-founder of Friending, to talk about why modern life is p...
The Man Behind the Badge joins us with special guest Eric Robinson
A lot of people want the wild FBI stories. We wanted the part that lingers after the story ends, what the work does to your nervous system, your faith, your marriage, and your view of other people. Former FBI agent Eric Robinson joins us with z...
Coffee Beans, Misheard Words, And A Very Honest Marriage
A Broadway-directing Hollywood powerhouse drops in, tells Michael he’s flat-out wrong about being “bad at podcasting,” and then takes it further by reading Faith’s poem on air. That single moment cracks the whole night open. We talk about what ...
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How Narcissistic Parents Lose Control When You Heal
Some people don’t hate you because of what you did. They hate you because you healed, and now they can’t control you. Tonight we get honest about narcissistic parents, the scapegoat role, and that gut-punch realisation Victoria shares: “She doe...
You Can Rebuild Safety With Small Daily Steps with Guest Joshua Hess
Somebody can be sitting in an urgent care exam room with bruises, fear, and an abuser answering every question and still have no clear way to say, “I’m not safe.” We go there, plainly and practically, with our guest Joshua Hess, a physician ass...
We Tried To Help His Dad And Uncovered A Nightmare
He’s supposed to be “Dad” and he’s supposed to be safe. Then one phone call turns into months of ambulance rides, doctor appointments, opioid red flags, and a home that slowly stops feeling like home. We share what happened when we took in Mich...