Jail is a wasteland, a dead end for men and women awash in pain, despair, anger.

Auburn’s George Brummell knows this all too well.

Growing up in northeast Portland and a heroin addict by his 15th birthday, Brummel spent the next 35 years fettered to the drug culture.

And paid dearly for it.

Brummel spent years locked away in regional and county jails in Washington and Oregon on drug-related charges, unable to shake his reckless ways, unable to stay clean.

He had no one to turn to, nowhere to hide.

“It’s very depressing,” Brummell said of his prison experience.”It gives you a chance to make an inner commitment to change.

“I look back and see how a person doesn’t have anything realistic they would want to change to,” he said. “They don’t have a path, nothing to reach for. And that’s the way I was.”

At a personal crossroads, Brummell, 49, recalls sitting in a King County Jail cell one day, staring into the cold eyes of a lengthy sentence for drug trafficking, when he had an epiphany.

“The Holy Spirit came into my life, changed my heart and changed my life,” he said. “I had decided I had had enough incarceration.”

Brummell served 102 months, half of them in community custody.

Given a chance to start a new life, Brummell found a home, a job and support from Grace Community Church. The congregation embraced him, and its leaders gave him a chance to succeed.

Returning the favor

To reciprocate, Brummell began to help others, volunteering his time and joining support groups to counsel individuals and families victimized by chemical dependency, domestic violence and other problems.

Returning to school to learn and to obtain the skills he would need to counsel professionally, Brummell completed an internship with the Recovery Centers of King County. He has since graduated from Faith Seminary of Tacoma with a degree in religion and is in his second year of graduate studies. He completes his master’s in counseling next month, which will net him a mental health credential to complement the state-certified chemical dependency professional credential he earned at Highline Community College.

“It was my five-year plan to go back to school to become a drug and alcohol counselor,” Brummell said. “The journey was interrupted by my relapses, but I wanted to complete it.”

Brummell has since opened his own practice in Auburn, Hope+Help Counseling, with a growing clientele in South King County, including Kent.

As someone who can personally relate to his clients, Brummell helps others secure housing, employment, schooling and other needs. He does it by mapping out a realistic, obtainable, step-by-step plan.

Where drugs, violence or other turmoil have ripped apart individuals, children, parents and families, he offers counseling.

“George listens attentively and then is able to speak in a language, understand a vocabulary and navigate a system that is very unapproachable to many in need,” said Shelly David, a domestic violence legal advocate. “He uses his own life stories to make you understand that he is coming from a place of really ‘knowing’ how it is.

“George is a great combination of heart for what matters (the people in need) and skill within the counseling/therapy systems. Without his special and spiritual forthrightness, the persons who need his voice would never access the proverbial ‘cup of cold water,'” David said.

Making a difference

The need to reach out is even greater today. Brummell hopes to make a difference.

“Identification is a huge component in helping anybody. You have to have that connection,” he said. “Once you do, there is a trust factor. … I’ve been there. You’ve been there.”

His career is his passion, his purpose in life. He is thankful for the many friends and colleagues who helped him find his way.

Giving back is vital.

“It is important to me … because I know the pain, I know what it’s like to be caught in a web of hopelessness, whether it be addiction, unemployment or family issues,” Brummell said.

“A person without hope is a sad individual. … To dig themselves out of their hole, they have to have hope. … You always need hope.”

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To learn more, visit www.hh-c.net.