Don Teater is a family physician who has worked in western North Carolina since 1988. His work in the southern Appalachian Mountains made him aware of the problems with opioid pain medications years ago. In 2004 he started a clinic to treat those addicted to opioids in his primary care practice.

From 2013 to 2016, he worked as Medical Advisor at the National Safety Council addressing the national epidemic of opioid abuse, addiction, and overdose. Dr. Teater was lead facilitator for the expert panel discussion during the development of the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain in 2016. Dr. Teater has also served on the World Health Organization Committee addressing drugged driving that met in Mallorca, Spain.

Since 2016, Teater has worked for Teater Health Solutions to concentrate on educating prescribers and others on the science of opioids and how that should influence treatment and policy decisions. Currently he contracts with the Center for Disease Control on the academic detailing of prescribers to educate them on the appropriate use of opioids for the treatment of pain. He continues to work via telehealth treating those with the disease of addiction at Meridian Behavioral Health Services in western North Carolina.
He is a pain and addiction specialist at Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Juneau and communities throughout Alaska (SEARHC.org).

Don now lives in Denver, Colorado, and travels all over the country working to improve pain treatment and reduce opioid misuse through policy development, prescriber training, and improving healthcare delivery.

Don is coauthor (with Martha Teater) of Treating Chronic Pain: Pill-Free Approaches to Move People from Hurt to Hope.

Martha Teater is a licensed clinical addictions specialist, licensed professional counselor, and licensed marriage and family therapist. She is a diplomate of the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. She has been in private practice in North Carolina since 1990. Now living in Denver, Colorado, Martha continues in private practice via telehealth, both in Colorado and North Carolina.
Martha has experience working in integrated care medical settings, outpatient substance abuse programs, free clinics, and mental health settings.

A consultant and presenter, Martha has done trainings all over the U.S. and internationally on such topics as behavioral treatment of chronic pain, DSM-5, evidence-based treatment of trauma, compassion fatigue, and ethics. She has written over 175 articles in newspapers and magazines and is co-author of Overcoming Compassion Fatigue: A Practical Resilience Workbook. She cowrote (with Don Teater) Treating Chronic Pain: Pill-Free Approaches to Move People from Hurt to Hope.