John Driskell Hopkins is a founding member of the Zac Brown Band, and while he still dedicates time to performing with the country group, he’s also dedicated to raising awareness and funds for ALS.

The musician was diagnosed with ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, in 2021. In addition to sharing updates about his condition, Hopkins shared with Fox News Digital that he had seen different neurologists before the disease was finally discovered. He said, “I told the guys back in 2019 that there was something wrong with me, like before COVID. My bluegrass hand was, this hand was still doing great, and this hand was slowing down. And throughout COVID, I played gigs in cul-de-sacs and private homes and back porches, and I noticed a little bit, but it wasn’t until we got back out in the fall of ’21 that I really noticed changes, you know, above and beyond just me not being able to keep up with bluegrass.”

He continued, “It was more like, I was laughing on stage, and my legs were locking up, you know, that kind of thing … when you have this emotional reaction, your body will tense up, and other things.” Hopkins said that one theory was that cholesterol drugs he’d begun taking had caused these symptoms. Another was that he had “some sort of head injury,” but that didn’t necessarily make sense to him because although he remembered having “knocked [his] head around a little bit” in the past, it was never hard enough to cause that sort of damage.

Hopkins shared, “It wasn’t until two neurologists missed it that we landed on the third and got the diagnosis.” “Honest to God, I’m just grateful to be sitting here talking to you two years later, almost two and a half years later, and not be in a wheelchair,” he admitted. The musician does struggle with certain things. His voice is affected by the disease, as is his balance. He isn’t able to move his fingers as quickly as he used to, but for the most part, his ALS is progressing “very slowly and very evenly.” When asked how he was feeling, Hopkins jokingly exclaimed, “Crap!” He then elaborated that “it’s difficult to approach every day jovial and excited. You have to continue to work on keeping a positive attitude and not let the demons creep in.”

The day he spoke with Fox News Digital, he was feeling “pretty good,” and he’d been singing, although his singing voice is also affected by ALS. In May 2022, six months after he received the diagnosis, Hopkins launched Hop On A Cure, a nonprofit foundation dedicated to researching ALS – as he told Fox News Digital, “The answer is in the research, and we want to fix it.” He said, “Hop On A Cure is a dream that we have to fund research and, selfishly, to save me. But also, on a grander scale, to provide the research funding needed to combat all motor neuron diseases, not just whatever is called specifically ALS, but also Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia. There are so many motor neuron diseases under this umbrella that need research and funding and need to be fixed.”

Hopkins declared that his goal with Hop on a Cure is simply “to cure ALS.” He continued, “We’re going to fix it, you know? Not single-handedly. ALS is not incurable. It is underfunded. And, you know, the cure to ALS could very well be communication. We have lots of people that respond really well to Western treatments and lots that respond really well to Eastern treatments, and it’s all their brand of motor neuron disease that is being combated. And, you know, there are certainly dozens of different reasons why we have to travel down this path. And we have to figure it out and fix it. And communication is probably the key.”