John Driskell Hopkins, singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and one of the founding members of the Zac Brown Band, was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2021. Since receiving the diagnosis, he has been working hard to fight his symptoms and continue living his life. A little more than three years after getting the news, he continues to work with ZBB and make memories with his family. Additionally, he and his wife started the Hop on a Cure Foundation to help fund ALS research.
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May is ALS Awareness Month. So, it was the perfect time for Hopkins to sit down with American Songwriter to talk about the Hop on a Cure Foundation, the importance of ALS awareness, and more.
John Driskell Hopkins on the Importance of ALS Awareness
The scientific and medical communities need to be acutely aware of this disease. They are the people who will develop and administer treatments. However, it is less clear why the general public needs to know more about the disease. John Driskell Hopkins was able to explain the importance of ALS awareness.
”ALS is predicted to make a 70% increase in cases by 2040. So, I’m not the only one [living with the disease], and there are many more of us coming,” Hopkins says. “The increase in cases leads us to believe that it’s growing at a ridiculous rate and we don’t know why,” he adds.
“I think just the numbers should wake people up. I’m not trying to instill fear, I’m trying to say it’s coming for us. It’s not nearly as rare as people think. It’s not nearly as rare as it used to be,” Hop explains.
“I still say ALS, and people to the RCA Dog, ‘What’s that?’ I have to explain. I tell them Stephen Hawking. If you say Lou Gehrig, they don’t know. It’s easier to say ‘I have what Steven Hawking had, but it’s slower. I could end up like him, or I could be dead,” he says, illustrating the need for wider awareness of the condition.
“I think people need to know that whether it’s our environment or toxins in our food or some other circumstance that we haven’t uncovered, something is ruining motor neurons at an increasingly alarming rate. Something needs to be done about that.”
The Hop on a Cure Foundation
“Something needs to be done about that” wasn’t just a passing thought for John Driskell Hopkins. It seems to be the sentiment that pushes him forward. Shortly after receiving his diagnosis, he and his wife started the Hop on a Cure Foundation. Today, the foundation employs a bare-bones team so it can funnel as much money as possible to ALS research.
“The foundation is three years old this month, and we have granted over $4 million since our inception to the very best research in the ALS space. That’s the goal,” Hopkins says. “We’re trying to fix it. We are trying to find a way to cure ALS. I knew I wouldn’t be satisfied if my girls didn’t know that we did all we could to fix it,” he says of the driving force behind the foundation.
The Hop on a Cure Foundation has a single goal. “We’re trying to take in as much money as we can and send it out as quickly as we can. We’re not trying to build infrastructure. We want to find and fund the very best that our world has to offer in ALS research. That’s our goal with the Hop on a Cure Foundation,” Hop explained.
Fortunately, ALS research is moving forward. However, as with any body of research, a lack of funding slows things down. ”We have new developments seemingly every couple of months. But, the funding that goes to ALS is a minuscule fraction of what it needs to be,” Hop explains. “We can’t rely on government funding. Even before the cuts, it wasn’t nearly enough,” he adds.
Hop shared his hope for the future of ALS research. “We need ALS, we need Parkinson’s, we need Alzheimer’s to go the way of HIV,” he says. “HIV used to be a death sentence. Now, when you contract HIV, they can stop it in its tracks. Now, we need them to do that for motor neuron disease. That’s the big umbrella term for those diseases. Our motor neurons are failing.”
What You Can Do
For those who want to know more about the disease, the ALS Foundation is a great source of information about signs, symptoms, diagnoses, treatments, and more.
Those who would like to join John Driskell Hopkins in his journey can visit the Hop on a Cure Foundation website. There, fans can donate, buy Hop on a Cure merch, and learn more about the foundation.
Featured Image by Daniel DeSlover/Shutterstock
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