The Eric Metaxas Show - Milo Yiannopoulos (Encore)

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

Milo Yiannopoulos opens up about his personal life in this in-depth interview, sharing his dramatic change of lifestyle as he continues to replace his destructive habits and grow closer to God. (Encored Presentation)

The Eric Metaxis show with your host, Eric Metaxis. Oh, hello. I didn't see you come in. My name is Eric Mataxis. I'm the host of the Eric Mataxis show, where so they tell me. And I get to talk to interesting guests. Today I have a particularly interesting guest. Have you heard of the comedian Andy Milanakis?

Are you excited? Ladies and gentlemen, oh, wait a minute. You're so familiar to me. But you're not Andy Milanakis. Because you've got one of those fake Greek names. That's only three syllables. Really? Metaxas.

Yeah. But it's, you know, if you had a real Greek name, Yonoplus, you know, you would understand that these jokes are very tired. Really? Yes. You know, it's funny because I don't think you're right. But you're Milo Unopolis. And Milo, I followed your career less than many, to be honest.

I mean, I'm very, very fond of you. But people who have. followed you like intensely think of you as just a provocateur a joker they don't know when to take you seriously that can be one of the downsides of being so comedically instinctive because recently you made a really serious announcement we touched on it last week um i tell tell us you know uh as with as little varnish as possible what's going on in your life um I've had a lot of time alone with my thoughts, having been basically unemployed for half a decade, being cancelled so many times. And I wrote a book in 2018 about Pope Francis, and it got me thinking more.

What was the gist of that book for people who don't remember that? It's called diabolical, and it's about the manner in which Pope Francis has been taking the Catholic Church, you know, in a gastly, direction, his turning a blind eye and even actively covering up for sort of mythical and pedophilic priests and various other things. And the subtitle of the book is, you know, how Pope Francis has betrayed clerical abuse victims like me and why he has to go. And ultimately the, the, was sort of an unhappy and incomplete final chapter as it must be for Catholics because we can't wish the guy dead and who we wouldn't, but we do want him out of office by the same. token, we can't hope that he quits because two popes in a row leaving office would make it a kind of

political appointment and then you would begin to get lobby groups and maybe even political parties in the College of Cardinals. As if they don't already exist? Are we kidding? Well, it would be a much more explicit and much more catastrophic politicization of the process of appointing a pope. There is supposed to be an advantage in the Supreme Court, you know, in the papacy of appointing somebody for life. They don't have to run for re-election. They don't have to worry about, you know,

cramming stuff into a short space of time. Sure, but if somebody is really awful, it would be nice for them to leave. But that's, this is a separate issue. Well, it's like monarchs, really. I mean, you get, you get good ones, you get bad ones. But the institution is structured the way it is, because on balance, it's better to have somebody in office for life because it tends to bring out the right things in people, you know? Anyway, so I wrote this book and in the course of writing, I was reading a lot of more conservative Catholic authors. Anyone you can see? Well, I was reading more like Rod Dreyer and, you know.

He's not Catholic. He's Orthodox. Well, yes, but I mean, I say he's conservative. And Anthony Isselen and, you know, people like that, I was reading. John Smirak? Not for this book, but I've started to read around. And, you know, me being me, I have quite middlebrow taste. So I, you know, started becoming a daily reader of, you know, church militant and websites like that, you know, they're robust kind of like Catholic bright bar, that kind of thing.

Yeah. So I mean that as a compliment. I then began to consider whether I should not be taking a more active role in my own faith, you know, whether I should not be participating more rather than just talking about it and writing about it and publishing books on it. When you were last here, we talked about this. And it was interesting to me because I felt that if you are writing about something and you're bright, enough to recognize eventually that it seems this is true. This is not just interesting. This is not just useful. Yes. It becomes a certain point where you have to admit the actual metaphysical,

literal truth of the stuff that you're reading and talking and thinking about. But they're people who don't. They manage to sidestep it. Yes. Frauds. There are consequences to getting too deep into your faith. So that's a component of it, but I have to be honest and say that the real and I'll try to keep it as family-friendly as I can, but the real driver for me was just the experience of committing certain acts in my private life that were not bringing me the kind of satisfaction that they used to, were not making me feel like they used to, and a growing awareness that this was some kind of papering over,

that this was some kind of prophylactic or analgesic. There was something like that going on. So there was something about it that felt like it was treating symptoms of something. Now, perhaps this goes without saying, but I say for my audience more than for you, that that's the very definition biblically of sin, right? We do these things because rather than do the right thing, which is take the trouble to God for healing, we decide to mask it somehow.

And obviously, heterosexuals do that exactly as much as anyone else. but it's so interesting that you somehow you got to this point yeah I mean it was it wasn't so much a road to Damascus as a kind of gradual unveiling or a it felt like you know sort of sheets of tracing paper were gradually

kind of slipping off the table you know to reveal the grain or something and I had got I mean I was quite enthusiastically papering over whatever you know whatever it was even to the point of getting quote unquote married to somebody.

And I was well aware that that was not a, you know, real marriage or religious, whatever, but it was not in the eyes of God, but I did it. And I found somebody that I even blasphemously felt was bringing me closer to God because he was enabling me to feel loved and to love, which had been a problem for me before. But unfortunately that for him, I guess, the journey that he started me on took me out of wanting to commit gay acts in time. entirely, which I guess is a definition of irony. I don't know.

That's, uh, the poor guy. Well, listen, no, but this is, uh, look, this is beautiful. Your honesty is beautiful. And there are a lot of people, again, who are challenged to believe that Malianopoulos could, could really be honest that this is just another. On any subject. Well, you know, look, look, there have been people. Let's, let's be clear.

And, and you've been several of them who, uh, will, you know, keep reinventing themselves. And it's just, it's all part of an act. and it doesn't necessarily mean that it's deeply dishonest, but it's part of something, it's part of a public persona. I think there are two different kinds of chameleons, if you like. There's the kind of chameleon who radically reinvents everything about themselves. Now, your list of guests on this show is like a who's who of the people who have destroyed America, you know, this kind of fraudulent Republican, you know, conment.

On this show? Like who? Well, quite often. I mean, you've got, you know, you have the Charlie Kirk's, you've got the National Review-type people. I mean, these are the people who sold and destroyed America. And these are the, these are the, well, I mean, for instance, you know, Charlie Kirk, who is trying to cancel people for saying that America shouldn't have, uh, uh, shouldn't America have strong borders like Israel does. And this is a, this, this two weeks ago was caused for Charlie Kirk to try to get somebody canceled and destroy, you know, destroy their career. And two days ago, he's tweeting the same thing. This is not important. We don't need to get into this. What I'm saying is these are the national review types, you know, the, the bulwark and the, you know, the dispatch types. These are the people who pivot, who radiance. reinvent their fundamental political belief systems in order to make money.

So when you see all the never-Trumpers who pivoted and became Trump's, you know, massive biggest fans, we all know their names, the Shapiro's and all the rest of it. I don't. Well, okay, but you have lots of them in the studio. You know, these people who radically, radically, I'm talking about that class of people, you know, who radically re-alter everything they believe to fit in with, you know, whatever the prevailing orthodoxy is. in order to make money and to grow their audiences.

Then there are people who have the same essential message, the people who say the same thing, but who recast it in different styles to reach new and different audiences. So I very much think I'm that kind of person, and the latter type, and the reason I say that is, you know, go back to 2015-16, when I was just becoming popular,

I was giving talks on college campuses with titles like the Catholic Church is right about everything. What I say hasn't changed. I acknowledge that. Hang on. We're going to go to a break here. And I want to be clear, that wasn't really the issue. In other words, how you say things, I think that's why so many people love you is because of the way you say things.

But I think that before people just want to know are you on the level and then you can joke. But it seems to me that you are. We'll keep talking about that. Folks, I'm talking to, I believe it's Milo Yanopoulos. We'll be right back. You got it. Hey there, folks. How many years have I been telling you about relief factor?

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features. Learn more at squadpod.com slash Eric. That's squadpod.com slash Eric. Let me say it again. Squadpod.com slash Eric. Check it out. Folks, we're back. I'm talking to Milo Yanopoulos. Yes, that's a Greek surname. Milo, where did you get the Milo part? I think it was kind of a cutesy semi-greek. I mean, it means Apple, kind of.

Milo. We don't want to call you Milo, but Milo. Yeah, it's kind of a cute Britishization, I think, of some word my mom-like. Can I call you Milosh? I don't think that's my name, but you can call me. You've been calling me a variety of things on and off air over the life. over the last few years. It's fun.

Sometimes you text me in the middle of the night. Do I? I don't think that's me. I think that's the Ambien. Now listen, we're talking about some very, very serious things, and I want to stay mostly on topic because we can go everywhere instantly.

But you're talking about a life change. The last time you were on this show, I remember somehow, because we were talking about your book Diabolical, is that a call, what it's called? I think that was the, yeah, I think that's when I was on. Okay.

And I was the one to say to you, you mentioned that you had that this priest, when you were what, 13, 14, had what, groomed you into a physical relationship? Although I don't think that's what did it. And I was suggesting to you at the time, based on some things that I have read and people that I've known, that oftentimes it's not a term. I think maybe I came up with a term. I don't know if I read it, but that we're not supposed to be. sexualized until our marriage, right? Now, it was, ideally, there is no sex outside of marriage so that when one's spouse in a heterosexual relationship becomes the sum total of one's sexual experience in a way

that sort of channels us in the right direction. But when sex is outside of marriage, it kind of, you know, things happen that ought not to happen. Yes, it's probably true. feels unrealistic to say it in 2021, but I think it's probably true. Well, who cares? Yeah, no, I agree with you. I agree with you. I think it's probably true. And look, everything that I have read and learned and experienced in my life has taught me that, you know, I mean, I'm obviously Catholic and we're cousins, but, theoretically speaking.

But everything that I have read has told me that all these things are true, that, you know, everything the religious right was screeching in the 80s and 90s, if only we'd listened. But, I mean, you understand that they weren't screeching anything. except what the Bible has been teaching for thousands of years. This is fundamental. And Catholics are the ones that are great with natural law. It's built into us. You cannot escape who you are. I think that's true.

And I don't think it was the priest that did it for me. I'm much more persuaded by research by people like Joseph Nicolosi, who says it has more to do with absent fathers and overbearing mothers and, you know, other kinds of trauma. I don't think, I mean, at 13, 14, I think if a priest tries to come on to you, you kind of turn around and clock him or you get out of there. You don't kind of willingly participate, as was my kind of recollection of my, you know, thing. Unless you already been primed by things that have happened earlier, it seems to me. But, Milo, I'm glad you brought this up because I've actually thought about this a lot because I didn't have any of those.

issues that you've just described. And I think it's because of that, that if a priest had come on to me or something like that, I wouldn't have responded. But so it's not really fair to say it's those previous issues. It's the combination, because you can have those previous issues and then not have that experience, and you may go on with your life. I'm not trying to let that priest or any priest off the hook. Yeah. No, it doesn't sound like you are. Indeed, I've been reading Peter Damien recently, who's a Catholic Cardinal from Yeh back in the day, who wrote a book about how to spot and what to do with sodomitical and pedophilic priests and all the rest of it. I'm by no means making excuses for them.

I wrote a whole book about why the Pope had to go because he was. But my experience is perhaps it was necessary, but not on its own a sufficient condition for ending up like I did. Interesting. So I think that it has just as much, if not more, to do with having no father in the home, having a very overbearing mother, having then later a stepfather who was physical with me and very psychologically abusive, kind of going through my room when I was out, making sure that I knew that my stuff had been gone through, you know, that I had no personal private sphere of, you know, of just my own stuff. You know, that kind of like petty vandalism that sometimes stepparents get kind of trapped into, you know, that to me feels like much more of a convincing etiology. Yeah. For the issues that I had later in life that led me to act out in this particular gateway, right?

I think with or without Father Michael, it would have happened anyway, is my perception. to let him off the hook, daddy's dead, et cetera. Shouldn't say that, you know, but I'll give myself permission for that one. I just think that if you, we put all of this focus on the priests and, you know, these people should be rooted out, identified, prosecuted, imprisoned, defrocked, of course. But that's not going to solve the problem, because you're still going to have people who are ending up gay or thinking that they are or doing this stuff because we don't have a healthy improper appreciation and respect for the family and because we aren't keeping dads at home

because we're not drilling into people, incentivizing in the tax system, reminding people in popular culture that the nuclear family is the best engine of healthy, happy, productive people. Okay. That's my point. Okay. And that, for me, is a much more powerful prophylactic against people ending up gay or bisexual or trans or whatever than anything else.

Well, but that's kind of like saying if there's no father at home, it's possible that criminals will break into the home. So you don't want to let the criminals off the hook. And the other hand, if there were a father at home. But you left the door open with a sign of over it saying, you know, come in and take what you want. So it sounds like then, you know, if you are, you know, a serious Christian and particularly Catholic, you buy into the idea, the biblical idea, that there's really no such thing. as a gay person that God doesn't create gay people.

No, actually the latest psychology, not that I take that discipline tremendously seriously, the latest psychology is very much about separating people from what they do, which is why gay men on government forms now are called men who have sex with men. It's about psychology, whatever, because they're trying to separate what you are from what you do. This is very new because as far as I have heard, the only thing that I hear is that people say, well, I am this way. This is who I am. Well, the latest kind of psychology is suggesting that people are a bundle of competing drives and they can be characterized by what they do, but it doesn't define who they are, etc. Well, this reminds you of something, doesn't it?

It reminds you very much if you cast your mind back to school or to a church sermon about what? Loving the sinner but hating the sin, but hating the sin. separating what and who people are from the things that they do. So, you know, there are no gay people. There are, as psychology has finally caught up to the church to confess, to admit, to acknowledge men who have sex with men. But that's very, you know, controversial to say that. I mean, I think that's clear biblical teaching,

but in this day and age, people don't say that. Whatever their contorted reasoning, go look it up online and you will see, I think, Britain now, British government forms, I think they now say men who have sex with men instead of gay men. I believe that there are some examples of it in this country too. It's starting to happen. People are beginning to acknowledge, not, of course, wishing to give the church any credit whatsoever, the essential psychological truth of what the church teaches about human nature,

even if they don't, even if they cannot and will not admit where they're realizing it from. You know? Well, this is very fascinating. I mean, honestly, I've not heard this. And although it seems to go, listen, if you're not dealing with truth, eventually you'll become all tangled up. And we've seen this in the trans world, right? That is this a man?

Is this a woman? It's a man who menstruates. Okay, whatever. It's a woman who, you know, it becomes preposterous. It's a part of that. It's exactly part of what you just described. They're now describing gay men as men of sex women. Anyway.

But I wonder if that's because the trans narrative. has eclipsed the gay narrative. I think it slightly predates it, but the bottom line is, regardless, we're now describing people in terms of performance of behavior, because menstruation is not a natural thing that happens to men,

but it's something that a trans person might perform, something that they might do or claim. So we're getting to the same place, even if we're taking a different route there. Well, look, again, this is the biblical idea, is that God creates us male and female, and he doesn't create, a gay person anymore than he creates an adulterer or whatever it is.

He just creates us as we are and then what we do is on us. I have always known that. I was saying years ago that I knew that born this way was an invention of the gay lobby in the 80s and 90s. And we all know why because the church was saying homosexuality is a sinful lifestyle choice. Therefore, what about if we make it like blacks or gays, then you're the bigger. And, you know, there's nothing we can do. We're perfect. We're, you know, we're born this way. Everybody knows it's just PR, no basis in science.

Everybody, you know, every scientist will tell you it's obviously a mixture of nature and nurture. And there are some people who may be born with some kind of predisposition toward it. But nobody is born, a homosexual. Nobody believes that. Absolutely no scientist believes that. This is very important stuff. And as I said, very controversial. So we'll come back to it with Milo Yanopolis.

It's the Arkmatakis show. Don't go away. Hey, folks. You certainly heard me talk about my pillow and how they're, products have literally changed my life. Now, have you tried the pillow? They don't go flat. You can wash them, dry them as many times as you want, and they maintain their shape. They're made in the USA, and for a limited time, Mike Lindell is offering his premium my pillows for the lowest price ever. You can get a standard queen premium my pillow for 2998. It's originally 6998. That's a $40 savings. Kings are only $5 more. Remember, all my pillow products come with a 60-day money-back guarantee and a 10-year

warranty, just go to mypillow.com, click on the radio listener's square and use promo code Eric. There you'll find not only this amazing offer, but also deep discounts on all my pillow products, including the Giza Dream Bedsheets, the My Pillar mattress topper, and My Pillo towel sets. Folks, you know I use these products and they're fantastic. Call 800, 978 3057, and use promo code Eric, or call 800, 978 3057. Use the promo code, Eric. Folks, I'm talking to Milo Ionopoulos. How do you pronounce your surname? I can barely spell it, let alone.

Come on, come on, come on. How do you say it? Because I've been criticized for pronouncing it to Greek, you know? Well, how do you say it? Well, I would want to say Yanopoulos. That's correct. Yeah. Yeah, that's it.

I mean, I don't... But it gets tricky. I'm not a Greek speaker, alas. Because, look, my name is in America, it's Metaxus. Right. But in Greek, it's metaxas. And if you say Metaxus... I have a friend whose name is Socrates, Papa Floratos,

which is the most amazing Greek name in the world. Socrates, Papa, Floratos. Isn't that a wonderful name? De Drepesee. All right, so actually that's beautiful. Well, my mother is German, so that's where I get the Eric from. But we were talking about some serious, super serious stuff. Many people would be very offended by our saying that we don't believe God creates anyone gay.

So what do you say when somebody says, but I've always known that I was three years old and four years old. What do you say to those folks? Please. Please give me a break. I mean, first of all, I think that more gay people, we'll just use the shorthand for the sake of, you know, more gay men, gay men, feel like there's something wrong buried in there than they will ever care to admit. And culture is powerful. Culture is very powerful. And if you tell people not only that this is who you are and what you are, but it's an important part of your identity.

and if you send the messages as culture does in America today that there might even be something morally good about it. I mean, we do seem to celebrate homosexuals as though there's something like intrinsically preferable about being gay, which is one of the most sick things that culture does in America. One of the absolute worst things that it does is suggest to people that these lifestyles

are guaranteed to drive, to suck you into misery, into drug taking, prostitution, into all these other dark aspects of gay life. And any gay person who tells you, they have never been touched by pederasty, prostitution, drugs, promiscuity. They are lying to you. No gay person on the planet who has had any kind of sex life whatsoever has not been touched by these things.

Because one form of darkness attracts the others. We know that when you let one sin in, the others will follow. We know that when you turn a blind eye to gaze in the clergy, you create an environment in which people look the other way at terrible sins and naturally pedophiles decide, oh, this is somewhere I could survive and possibly even thrive. So I'll do that, right? We know that that's what happens. If you tell people that this is part of who and what they are and that it's good and that they'll be happy and wonderful and be celebrated by all of the people. these idiot women, these white liberal women who ruin the world, you know, who are behind drag queen's story hour and gay pride, if you tell people that has a powerful effect on the

way in which gay men think about themselves, and most of them are probably convinced that this is how they were born and they have no other option. And I encourage people, if you're listening to this, and even if you are in the older, you know, bit of the audience, among the older generations in the country, you probably still have some atavistic, like, disgust or dismissal response when you hear about conversion therapy or reparative therapy because you think that's ridiculous. Obviously it doesn't work.

Well, I just encourage you, if you're thinking about that, to cast your mind back to the last election and the one before it. And think about the gap between the way that the world was described by network television. and the way that it really is out there. You know how big that golf is. One of the very first times that the mainstream entertainment and news establishments decided to start describing the world as they wished it were, rather than the way it is, was in the 80s and 90s about gays.

It was about AIDS, conversion therapy, and homosexuals. This is when it started. If you are familiar with the way in which journalists lie about Donald Trump, about Republican voters, about, you know, you name it, me, him, whoever, you will have some idea of how rabid they were about conversion therapy. And most of what you think about it has simply been inherited. You know, we kind of like, we sort of acquire a lot of things in this kind of soft, you know, osmotic kind of way, right?

We kind of pick stuff up. Born this way is a lie. And men who have sex with men are doing so as a result of childhood. trauma. It is not a, it is not a, it's not a lifestyle and it's not a part of what they are. It is a set of symptoms. And it is, I have come to realize this very bitterly and painfully and, and acutely, I've always felt quite, I've always felt like an outsider in my life. I have never been more bitterly aware of my own loneliness than I am right now as I realize that all this stuff I thought was real just wasn't.

And you can help people who are in this miserable place. Well, part of the lie about conversion therapy is that whenever anyone talks about it, as usual, they will think of the most draconian versions of it. They will find somebody who, yeah, they will always bring up that. They will always bring up some kid who had monstrous fundamentalist parents who forced them. But I know many people who on their own sought their own. sought this. And there are governors in America today, Chris Christie, among them, former governor, who have made it illegal even to pursue this. If you yourself as an adult choose to leave a certain lifestyle, and we're going to go to a break, forgive me. But I just want to say that

Jeffrey Satinover has written about this, Nikolosi's written about this, and it's extraordinary, as you say, how the culture can just say, we can't have this, we won't have this, this is hate speech. We're going to be back talking to Milo Yanopolis. Don't go away. And if we go someplace to dance, I know that they're going. Folks, welcome back talking to Milo, Unopolis. This is really important stuff we're talking about Milo. There are, I always think, the reason I'm forthright in speaking about what I think the Bible,

says about sexuality, what the church has taught about sexuality, is because I always think of some young man who is struggling with this and who is only hearing one point of view, which I believe is wrong. And I think if you really care about that young man and want to give him a choice, you have to tell him the truth. And people in this culture are afraid to say what we're saying. You would not believe the number of 17, 20, 25-year-old men who have written to me in the last couple of weeks who have said, I have had and acted out on these urges. And I know that this is not what I want. And I know that this is not right. And I feel myself being dragged into this lifestyle.

Everything around me is telling me that this is a virtuous way to live, that this is the easiest way to be happy. And I know that it isn't. Can you help me? this has become for me the great moral duty of the next decade, at least of my life, because I know that I'm gifted in certain ways. I know that I am a man of great talents and correspondingly great flaws, but I, you know, I'm good at certain things, and I'm gifted at certain things. And one of those is I can, I'm good at getting people to pay attention to something for a few minutes, you know?

and I'm good at putting projects together and getting in touch with different people and I can pretty much pick up the phone to anybody and there's certain things that I can do. So one of the things that I'm going to do over the next 10 years is I'm moving to Florida as part of this. I've demoted the gentleman I was living with to a housemate and I'm now going and moving to Florida and I'm going to open a clinic. I'm going to open a... Have you said this publicly? I've missed this. I have. It was in the New York Post a couple of weeks ago, but people are too scared to talk about it to me.

So I'm going to be opening up a clinic to help people who were struggling as you were. With the same-sex attraction. We now are obliged to call it reparative therapy rather than conversion therapy because of lawsuits from liberals. Well, reparative is an even better word. Why not? Well, because conversion therapy is more annoying. I much prefer to call it conversion therapy. But there are certain things I can do, for instance. I mean, you know, it's not illegal. offer electroshock therapy. So we'll just call it the Pence pathway and we'll, you know, I'm being silly, but, all right. For real, though, there, there are dozens of people in my inbox

who are saying, please put me in a program now. And there are hundreds more who just don't know where to go and what to do. So my aspiration is to start with one place in Florida where people can come for residential treatment. I'm not a clinician, obviously. I'm going through this journey. But one of the things I can do is help put money together with expertise together with a bit of PR and, you know, whatever and and, you know, mix it all together and normally things turn out well. So I can start to set that up. And my goal with it would be to make something a little bit, I guess, like Planned Parenthood in the sense that not selling baby parts, obviously, but in the sense that we'll do some clinical work, but we'll also publish some research and we'll also do lots of public relations. And I can build an auditorium and give speeches again at last. Now, you know what you can do, Milo, this is just an idea.

But just to be really provocative, you could call it born this way clinics. And this could be an italics. Yeah, yeah. What do you say? Well, there's that, I won't commit today, but there's that meme that goes around, you know, I was born this way. Jesus replies, well, you need to be born again. Well, actually, no, you've just brought something up, which, I probably would have forgotten to bring up. I just want to say to anybody who is in any lifestyle

that I would be lying if I didn't say that in the natural, it may be impossible to deal with it, to get out of it. I would say that you need God's help. And anybody in the 12 Steps program knows that apart from God actively helping us, we can be stuck. Yes. Yes. I My experience as a Catholic has been, and I think a lot of people have had this experience who are dealing with addictions and with compulsive behaviors, one of the most effective ways to replace something you're doing habitually, a compulsion and addiction, is to replace the old rituals, because addicts always construct rituals around their behavior. You know, Coke addicts will have, like, their mirror, their favorite little metal straw, and quite often those addictions will become clustered together. so he'll do that and he'll have his pornography and as a particularly, you know, all his tabs and everything.

I don't speak from direct personal experience, but, you know, but people have these kinds of clusters of addictions. Replacing those rituals, those repetitive practices, with new healthy repetitive practices that help to turn... Like chopping wood? Well, I was thinking more of the rosary, but for you perhaps, for chopping wood. I thought you just meant, you know, standard heterosexual guy stuff. Certainly, we're going to get at the chainsaws. exercise can help working out, you know, eating well, getting into whatever.

But not in certain gyms. You've got to be careful. Well, yeah, I mean, I think a real man has a gym at home, doesn't he? Of course. He builds his own... Of course. I certainly do. I've built my own stable, so, you know, I've set off on a good path when I was beginning as a child.

Although building it for a pony. Yeah. But for me, it was the rosary because that repetitive... It's the replacement with a repetitive... ritual that is moving you in a good way. Let's not be so secular. You say the rosary, the rosary is not, the rosary is nothing apart from God. And that's the idea. In other words, you're doing something where you're inviting the God of Scripture into your life. As Christians, we know that. But there are people who go to Catholic rehabilitation and treatment

programs who are not Catholic who rid themselves of drug addiction. by going through the motion. But you know why that is? And then they quite frequently find... Because God is real. Of course. Yeah. And this is...

But it's not the motions. I understand. But Aristotle's great insight, the habits become character, is analogous here, right? You know, you go through the motions of faith and through those actions, God has revealed to you.

You realize... I see what you're saying. You get what I'm saying. You know, you can start somebody off doing this stuff, praying, showing up to Mass, you know, doing the repetition of... Okay, okay, I'll do it. But God is revealed.

them in that process, but the mere fact of doing it, of providing them with an alternate, I mean, look, you and I are Christians, we both know it's actually real, it's this real stuff, but I'm saying if you can help guide people towards this stuff, the mere act of prayer and of participating in Christian life has a magnificent effect. It's way more effective than any other kind of treatment. Well, this is wonderful. We're going to take a break. We'll continue the conversation later on. Milo, thank you for your honesty and other nice things. Okay, gang, enough about Milo. Are you ready for your homework assignment?

Albin, Chris, you understand this weekend, we've got a heavy homework assignment for all listeners. And I'm sorry, but that's the way it is. You want to do better in this class. You got to do the homework. All right. So number one, you can't even do number one unless you do the other thing. So I'm going to make this number one. What is it?

Everywhere I go, I say to people, you sign it for the newsletter. No, what's the newsletter? Folks, please, I'm just telling you, we've had amazing guests, and you're not going to find them on Rumble. You're probably not on Rumble. We need to send you the newsletter, and it's all teed up. So there's Milo. There is Lvado.

Alan Dershowitz. There's Dershowitz. There's all the stuff that we cannot put on. YouTube or we couldn't put it on YouTube. Trust me, go to Eric Mataxis.com. This is a homework assignment. So you want to get a good grade? You just got to do this. What can I tell you? Homework counts. You go to Ericmataxis.com. Sign up for the newsletter. If you have trouble, just send us an email where it says contact and we will put you in. But it's the only way for us to share the show and the videos in a way that's going to make it easy for you. And I hate people missing stuff because

we have some amazing guests. We get some amazing guests coming up. So go to Eric Metaxus.com and sign up for the newsletter. That's number one. Number two, please share our videos on social media or with your friends. We really do feel that that's the best way to get them out. So that's important. Number three, nutrometics.com. Go to nutrometics.com.

Use the code Eric. Whatever you're already taking, you should be taking vitamin D every day, zinc, magnesium, and a few other things. You might as well get it from nutrimetics.com. Why? Why? Because they give 50% of their profits to missions and wonderful charities. That's amazing. They want to give $100 million away by the end of the decade. It's an amazing organization. We'll tell you more about that. Also, don't forget to go to my store.com.

Most of my books are at my store.com. If you use the code, Eric, the prices are actually, this is true. The Mugsy books, anybody who gets them is always shocked because they're huge, they're beautiful. They're like coffee table children's books. they're almost sold out. We priced them so low. This is true, that they're almost sold out. If you use the code, Eric, you can still get them, but I promise you, they told me that we're almost out.

So if you want them, go to my store.com. And, you know, we should also mention salem now.com. We won't be mentioning it as often in the future. But right now, for people to get acquainted with it, go to salemnow.com. America, America is on there. We talked to Nick Searcy. We haven't played that yet, have we? No, we did.

On Wednesday, Wednesday we had Nick on. All right, well, then you know. But there's a lot of great stuff. You're looking for something that's educational, edifying, entertaining. SalemNow.com. Use the code, Eric. I'm not sure what the discount is, but they said that there's a discount. Right.

Two more homeup assignments, and then you're done. Ready? Yeah. Okay. You got to go to stream. org. Or. Stream.

org. Stream. Find John's Mirax writings. Print them out. Share them. Okay? That's a homework assignment. John writes one every day,

so you're just going to have to have a tab or something like that. But his stuff is so true. The one he wrote last night about Bruce Jenner. Oh, my gosh. Folks, you don't know what you're missing. This is genius stuff. Cancel your newspapers and get the read of stuff. Eric, you forgot about shopmetaxis.

No, I didn't. That was next. Oh, okay. Reminding me, it's your job, man. You're doing it. Shop Metaxus. We, you know, I don't know if people even know it's there. So I thought we probably should mention it a little bit more.

But Shop Mataxis, T-shirts, hats, mugs, tumblers. Hey, don't forget. And don't forget, children's books by Albin and Eric. Hamster Homes. And they're signed. So, but you have to go to Salem, I'm sorry, shopmaston. Notcom. Shopmetaxe.

It's at our radio website, Metaxis. talk.com. But the prices on the t-shirts and the hats and the mugs are very low. So just in case you're looking for something fun. I think we're out of time. Those are the homework assignments. Please don't forget it's going to be in your front grade. Thank you.