Prepare to be shocked: 'breaking the seal' is a big, fat myth.

Picture this: there you are, happily knocking back ciders on a Friday night, ignoring that faint urge to pee, when suddenly your bladder decides you finally, desperately, need to go. Uh-oh.

From that fateful moment on, you become very well acquainted with the bathroom decor choices of your venue, because you’re making guest appearances in 12 minute intervals. Well, it’s probably more like half hourly intervals, but time really speeds along when alcohol’s involved.

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If this sounds familiar, then congratulations: you’ve experienced the joys of ‘breaking the seal’.

Or have you? Don't be so sure — evidently there's no such thing as breaking the seal. It's all in your head. (Quick, somebody cue the X-Files theme song).

RELATED: What the colour of your urine says about your body.

A recent Vox article has dismantled the popular urban legend that the first time you hit the bathroom while drinking alcohol somehow breaks the 'seal' to a magical, bottomless supply of urine, thereby crossing a point of no return.

Well, nope — it just so happens that alcohol stimulates your body to produce more of it than the equivalent amount of water does. (Post continues after gallery.)

"Let's say you've been out in the sun all day, and you don't have to pee, and then you go to the bar and have four or five beers," New York University urologist Benjamin Brucke  told the website.

"All of a sudden you're more hydrated, and alcohol is a bit of a diuretic, so you'll be making even more urine. As a result, once you start peeing it's probably just going to keep happening."

RELATED: If you need to urinate more than twice a night, you could have this condition.

I know what you're thinking: This is brand new information! Why is nobody talking about this? Well, that's because it's not brand new information at all — the 'breaking the seal' lie has been unveiled numerous times over the years. Urologists around the world are probably wishing we'd all hurry up and get the point already.

A 2013 NBC News report goes even further into the science behind all of this. Your urgent need to pee largely comes down to the suppressive effect of alcohol consumption on vasopressin, also known as the anti-diuretic hormone or ADH for short, which is produced by the pituitary gland.

"Alcohol simply blocks the normal release of vasopressin … [vasopressin] promotes re-absorption of water in the kidney to the rest of the body. If you have this blocked, the water goes into the body," explains James Zacny, associate professor of anesthesia at University of Chicago Medicine.

This water eventually finds its way into your overworked bladder, which is already struggling to contain the sheer amount of liquid you're imbibing at the bar. This explains the repeated toilet visits.

RELATED: You can get drunk without actually touching a drop of alcohol. Seriously.

“[Alcohol] decreases your ADH and you are producing more fluid. So when you produce more fluid and you fill your bladder more, you suppress more ADH,” urologist Courtenay Moore adds. And so it continues throughout the night.

As for why it takes so long for the mythical 'seal' to 'break' — there's an explanation for that, too. According to Mental Floss, the suppression of ADH or vasopressin doesn't happen straight away, so you probably won't need to go during those initial glasses of sauv blanc.

RELATED: How much alcohol can I really drink?

Also, after roughly 20 minutes alcoholic bevvies can start to irritate your bladder, making it feel like it's close to bursting point when it's actually not.

So, in sum: there's no such thing as 'breaking the seal', but your ceaseless need to pee? It very much exists. This information probably won't offer great comfort when you're rushing to the Ladies' for the umpteenth time on Saturday night, but at least it'll give you a conversation starter while you're waiting in the line.

Did you know this?