Whether you’re gathering with relatives around for a holiday feast or enjoying regular dinners with family, it’s important to be careful about what you discuss. There’s an old adage about never discussing politics or religion with others, and there’s a good reason for that. These topics can be highly controversial when your opinions or beliefs differ from those around you. Bringing these subjects up can cause you additional stress, which can make it more difficult for you to work through 12 step recovery. Instead of talking about hot topics like politics or religion, here are several ideas of other topics to bring up.
Personal Topics
While some personal topics might be off limits, such as relationship problems a family member is having, you can bring up a wide range of other discussion topics. Ask family members how their jobs are going, how school is going, whether they’ve traveled anywhere interesting lately or what their plans are for the upcoming year. These are safe subjects that can lead to lengthy conversations about careers, education, travel and other topics. They also give you and everyone else at the table a chance to learn more about loved ones and what’s important to them. If you’re trying to become close to loved ones again while working toward sober living, these topics give you a great way to do so.
Current Events and Entertainment
You can also talk about things that are going in your community, your city or the wider world, but be careful to stay away from anything that strays too close to politics or religion. For example, avoid talking about upcoming elections. Instead, bring up amusing or funny things that you’ve seen online or in the news. You can also ask family members if they’ve seen any interesting movies or TV shows lately. If you’ve seen some, you can share your opinion of them.
Hypothetical Questions
These offer a fun way to learn about loved ones while enjoying a meal. They also give you a way to learn more about yourself as you go through addiction recovery. You can start by asking family members things like what kind of superhero power they would love to have, what kind of animal they would choose to be or where they would go if they could pick one place to travel to. You and your family members can take turns going around the table and asking these questions for an amusing mealtime.