There are two ways of abstaining from a substance or behavior: a positive and even joyful choice for something else that has a greater value for you or a forced decision to stay away from something you crave and are spontaneously attracted to. This second type of abstinence, while it requires admirable fortitude and patience, can still be experienced in a negative way and contains a hidden danger. Human beings have an ingrained opposition to any sense of being forced, an automatic resistance to coercion that my friend Dr. Gordon Neufeld has called counterwill. It is triggered whenever a person
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