Recovery is Cricket

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I've heard the expression "That's not cricket" now and again my whole life and inferred from context that it meant that someone had behaved badly. But I had never actually checked that out. So I did. It turns out that it derives from the game of cricket rather than the critter. Cricket means fair and honorable behavior. When one is fair and honorable one is cricket. I rather like saying that. You can say to someone you respect, "You are cricket", or about yourself, "I am cricket." It could be fun. This musing reminded me that I know nothing about the game of cricket, so I decided to see what I could track down.

I soon found myself at the web site of the International Cricket Counsel and there I found the Rules and Regulations of Cricket. The first entry in the rules was the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct does not address the rules of the game - scoring, outs, striking, and the rest. The Code of Conduct concerns how players are expected to conduct themselves during a match. The code includes prohibitions against involvement in gambling or illegal drugs, arguing with umpires, publicly speaking ill of other participants in the game, using foul language, abusing, threatening, or assaulting anyone or offending, insulting, humiliating, intimidating, threatening, disparaging, or vilifying another person on the basis of race, religion, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin, and a few other mundane items. But then comes the meat of the code. The code informs us that players and others "shall at no time engage in conduct unbecoming to their status which could bring them or the game of cricket into disrepute." In other words, they are to be fair and honorable - they are to be cricket.

Two things about this struck me. First, the Code of Conduct comes first in the Rules and Regulations of the game. Then come the descriptions and rules of the game, which describe how you play and, presumably, how you win. What comes first is the most important part. As recovering addicts - as people - our personal codes of conduct ought to come first. Our values ought to be the most important part of us. We ought to be mindful of our codes and values first and always. Scoring points, however we are counting points in our lives, ought always come after our Code of Conduct. Second, the Code of Conduct is very simple and very transportable. One ought not to behave in a way that brings you into disrepute. One is to be fair, honorable, and reputable. That is something to use in recovery. In recovery, one is to be cricket.

Think of how you act out. See if you can think of a single instance that was not unfair, dishonorable, or disreputable in some way. Can you think of a single instance that was not at least one of those? If you are like most addicts you can't. Sexual addiction is not cricket. Recovery is. When you are cricket, you benefit yourself by avoiding your bottom line behaviors. But most important, you honor yourself. And that's really cricket.

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