Message from the Founders: A New Chapter for Alcohol Freedom

February 9, 2023

Greetings friends.

We appreciate your patience as we have explored options for reopening Awake in Denver. After considerable effort visiting new locations, pursuing new capital, partnering with potential new management, and much personal reflection, we have concluded that selling Awake to new ownership is in the best interest of its mission and everyone impacted. If you believe you are a leader who can carry the Awake torch forward, please contact us.

Since Awake opened, the alcohol-free movement has grown exponentially. There are now more delicious, high-quality alcohol-free beverages on the market than we could have imagined when we first built our collection. There are several AF bars around the country and even more AF bottle shops. We look forward to the day when choosing alcohol freedom is as normal as the choice to drink. It’s coming soon.

The term alcohol freedom means so much more to us now than it has ever before. It’s intensely personal, with perspectives about it as varied as there are people who have ever chosen to forego a drink. To us, it means liberation from attachment to alcohol, not just the chemical but the anticipation of it, planning around it, preoccupation with avoiding it, and judgment of the choices others make in this regard. It’s a wholesale letting go; an aspiration that we can only intend to achieve in each new moment.

If you’ll afford us one more contribution to this dialogue, our hope would be that all of us who support normalizing not drinking embrace and support one another wherever we are on the path, whatever alcohol freedom means to us, however we choose to practice it.We want to conclude with thanking all of you – each of you – for the incredible support, love, and energy you have given to Awake and to us personally. It has been palpable from the first day we opened our doors. Awake is most definitely you; you are Awake. We could not be more grateful. You have inspired us beyond measure.

We carry that inspiration forward into new endeavors. Billy is launching a mindfulness-based coaching and meditation training service while continuing his health policy work. Christy is a founder and partner with The Zero Proof Life, an all-women-run growth community exploring radical self-care through alcohol-free living and mindfulness. We would love to stay connected with you as our collective alcohol-free journeys unfold.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

From our hearts to yours,

Billy & Christy Wynne