Jim Mandelin was born in rural Alberta to a violent, alcoholic, Klu Klux Klan father and a teenage runaway, homeless kid who became Jim’s mother. His grandmother insisted on caring for him and he was taken from his parents to be raised on her farm from infancy until fifteen years of age. Jim never saw his mother again until adulthood. Though his grandmother did her best to care for him, she was confined to a wheelchair and his care became the primary responsibility of his father’s younger siblings. This they did with great resentment and animosity.
Jim endured years of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at home and severe bullying at school. At fifteen years old he ran away to the mean streets of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver British Columbia where he continued to be abused, selling drug for the gangs, ending up in prison and being recruited into a motorcycle gang. He became a debt collector for the gang and beat people. Life changed for Jim when at the age of twenty two he entered drug rehab where he had a drug induced heart attack and had a near death experience.
Although Jim’s story is one of great trials and much sadness, he has lived to overcome a life of addiction, prison life and gang violence. With years of painful introspection and therapy Jim was able to stop his self-abuse, violent behavior and develop empathy for himself. The results of this helped Jim to quit a four package a day cigarette habit, completely change his thinking and behavior and to create a holistic health regimen for himself.
With much therapeutic help Jim is now thirty-eight years clean and sober. Jim currently works as an inspirational speaker and counselor sharing his experience and hope with thousands of kids in schools and prisons each year. For the past ten years now he has also taught a course at several Universities to classes of new police officers, prison guards, border guards and parole officers on the topic of Interpersonal Relationships and the Development of Empathy. He is now living happily with his wife (Kids have grown up) in Vancouver, British Columbia.