In the summer of 2022, we lost my mother to ALS.
This December, hell mark his third year of living with ALS.
But honestly, Im not that much different than I was when they told me that.
John Driskell Hopkins, a founding member of Zac Brown Band, is three years into an ALS diagnosis and determined to find a cure.Derek White/GettyImages
Eventually breathing and swallowing and motion are gone.
Thats how it gets you, he says.
But people need to know that ALS is not incurable; it is underfunded.
In two years, Hop On A Cure has awarded nearly $3 million in funding.
It also encourages people tohost their ownfundraisers in solidarity.
We dont have the answers, he sighs.
He saw two neurologists, but neither suspected ALS.
That was bad news.
My wife was very upset.
I was like, The ice bucket thing we did back in the day?
There are two medications that are approved; Im on both of them.
To supplement his treatment, hes gone to extremes to reimagine his diet.
The American diet is trash, he says.
Its money and greed and lobbyists.
We believe that there is a solution out there all we have to do is find it.
Hopkins stops talking to watch a party bus hauling happy tourists through Nashville.
Look at them, he laughs, theyre having the time of their lives.
