SELECT COUNT of multiple column under the same table
The use of COALESCE() will do what you ask for very nicely, but I would also question if you might want to reconsider your schema. It looks like what you're doing is tracking individuals' membership in various groups (column_1 ... column_X).

You would probably fare far better to simply make a membership table with two columns: member_id and group_id. You could then more easily add/remove groups from the groups table and counting memberships would have been as simple as a COUNT() on rows matching the member_id in the membership table. This would also set you up better for varying types of members (additional field on membership). Just a thought on a better way to plan for future needs here.