MS-SQL Like statement alternative or help

Ok, so we have been asked to create an analytic report for an employee. We have most of the equation in place, but now we are down to a handful of columns in one last table. We need to pull specific information from each column without hard-coding anything.

Here is the problem, the Columns hold mixed values such as:

Column1 Column2 Column3C1 13 1,36 17 2,34,5 1 2

Now the other guy here knows a lot more about SQL and the likes than I do. He said we are going to have trouble with this because we can't use the "Like" statement while joining this table to our current query. Because "Like 1" will be true for 10 and so forth.. He said we will likely have to create another view, then convert the columns into rows to accomplish this. I'm not sure I am following his plan here.

Is there an easier way to go about this?

While I've got you, what is...