Can I prevent the Stepper library from holding the motor? I'm using the Stepper library to control a single stepper motor. When the Arduino is not running the motor it is holding the motor shaft in place. For my application, this is very wasteful and puts unnecessary strain on the motor.

Is the Stepper library supposed to do this or is something else up with my circuit? Can this behavior be overridden?
use disable output class in  accelstepper library.
http://www.airspayce.com/mikem/arduino/AccelStepper/