The Two Norries: 'When those guards showed me compassion, it struck a chord with me'
The Two Norries: James Leonard and Timmy Long. Picture: Larry Cummins
“I was looking for a way out, and the only one that I could see was death.” Three men are discussing mental health and the importance of recognising patterns of trauma in childhood in order to understand your behaviour as an adult. No, this is not a livecast of Doctor Phil, it’s a recording of The Two Norries Podcast, fronted by Cork men James Leonard and Timmy Long.
The podcast – which launched last summer – is a way for Leonard and Long to share their own learnings about overcoming addiction with as wide an audience as possible. Both men grew up on Cork’s northside, falling into addiction at an early age. Clean and sober today, they know that the battle to overcome an addiction is not one you can do alone.
When James appeared on The Tommy Tiernan show in January of this year, he had no idea what was ahead. “I had a feeling that my story would resonate with people, but I had no idea of the scale of it,” he explains.
During the appearance, Leonard spoke candidly about his spiral into drug use, starting with solvents in school, then prescription painkillers and ultimately, heroin. Seven years ago, he was woken up on the streets of Cork city by two gardaí, who gently cautioned him about his drug use.
“At that stage I was looking for a way out, and that way was death,” he says. “When these guards – who I didn’t have a great relationship with by the way – showed me compassion and empathy, it really struck a chord with me. The next day, I rang to get on a list for a treatment centre.”
Today, Leonard is working on his PhD, part of which is focused on the context of drug use in Ireland and Cork. He understands better than most the wide-reaching effect of drug-use on the community, and the response to his appearance on the show was overwhelming. “I had thousands of messages every day on social media from desperate family members who wanted me to help their loved one. People have this notion that I can say something magical that's going to make somebody change but that's not how this thing works.”
Timmy Long has overcome a long battle with drug and alcohol addiction and is clean and sober since 2011. Like James, lots of people have reached out to him, looking for advice on how to deal with a loved one in the throes of addiction. “I want to help as many people as I can, because I know how lucky I am,” he explains.
James says that he began to realise that while he couldn’t help every person he was contacted about, the conversations that he regularly had with long-term friend Timmy, actually might. “We often had conversations between the two of us that we thought would be beneficial for people who were struggling or in early recovery.”
Armed with an idea for a podcast in the middle of a pandemic, the two men set to work finding out how to broadcast… on YouTube. “We had contacted a podcast studio prior to lockdown, but obviously that couldn’t happen by the time we were ready to record,” says James.
Timmy had a workshop in his back garden that they converted into a studio, complete with toilet facilities for guests. James taught himself how to edit sound and video by watching YouTube tutorials.
“Timmy has built an actual studio. We have all the equipment that we need, and we are adding and changing things as we go. At the moment we are adding some extra sound-proofing to it to get rid of an echo that I hear in the editing.”
The result is a podcast that is as professional as it is engaging. Streamed on all major podcasting platforms and telecasted to YouTube, The Two Norries has a feel of Joe Rogan about it – round table discussions that are navigated in a casual manner. Their guests range from Caitriona Twomey of charity organisation Penny Dinners. to Senator Lynn Ruane, all contributing their insight into the world of addiction.
The format works. Timmy’s deep emotional underbelly is countered beautifully by James’ comedy timing (“It can be serious stuff but I feel that if we can make it a small bit light-hearted then it's more digestible for people”). Where Timmy has a fractured relationship with education thanks to a late diagnosis of dyslexia, James flourishes with their academic guests, flexing the muscles he has honed while studying for a Masters in criminology and now for his PhD. Timmy excels at getting guests to show their vulnerable side, by being unafraid to show his own.
They want the podcast to act as a light for those who need it, says Timmy. “We hope that we are able to point people in the right direction and show them that they're not the only people that think the way they think, or suffer the way they are suffering.”
Drug use in Ireland is divided by socio-economic groups, says Leonard.
“There is a hierarchy of drug users. For example, there is a fair stigma that comes with heroin use whereas cocaine is a very normalised part of society today. When I was using heroin, if I could get it together to go to a party, often people would be giving out to me about my drug use while snorting lines of cocaine off the coffee table.”
As a part of his PhD, Leonard is looking specifically at drug use in Cork, and says that while heroin is often considered the most epidemic of drugs, that is only because it’s the most visible. “In Cork, we had only a handful of heroin users in 2004 and 2007/2008 we had a couple of hundred. What happened was the recession. There is a huge correlation between heroin use and the recession.”
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction announced in September that cocaine has overtaken opiates as the second-most commonly used illicit drug in Ireland. “We focus on heroin because we see it on the streets. People who use opiates tend to be street users. People use on the streets because they are excluded from society. People who take cocaine are taking it in more ‘palatable’ surroundings.”
Timmy Long says that is recovery has taught him that it’s ok to be vulnerable – a feeling that is the antithesis to what he experienced growing up in a family where mental health issues were pervasive and three brothers all ended up with issues of addiction. “For many years I would have had to ‘man up’ as they say, because of the life I was leading in terms of drugs and crime. You have to let go of all that to find your purpose in life and to really be yourself.”
Today, seven years clean, James says that he is grateful for his addictions, because they gave him the opportunity to do personal work on himself that he would never have had otherwise. “Becoming an addict was the best thing that ever happened to me because you are forced into looking at yourself. I think everybody could do with some amount of that.”
Timmy Long on some of the guests who impressed him:
- Senator Lynn Ruane: “She spoke so honestly and is such an impressive person with the work that she does in the Senate.”
- Sharon Lambert (psychologist): “She is a very, very smart lady and I have a huge interest in what she has to say.”
- Caitriona Twomey (Cork Penny Dinners): “I have a very close relationship with Caitriona personally through her work with my family and that was a real pleasure.”
- Mikey Olden (mental health campaigner): “For him to be so young and speak about mental health and suicidal feelings so honestly was amazing.”
- Philly McMahon (Dublin footballer and campaigner for decriminalisation of drugs): “He really cares about what he is doing to help people because he has seen first hand the devastation that drug use can cause.”
