Your friend is misinformed. If a person does hold their urine indefinitely, while continuing to ingest liquids, either the urine will come out through the urethra due to incontinence or the bladder will burst. In fact, the famous Danish astronomer Tycho de Brahe was said to have died because he held his urine so long at a banquet, thinking it would be rude to leave the table, that his bladder burst. He died a few days later.
Here's one account:
Quote:
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Tycho suddenly contracted a bladder or kidney ailment after attending a banquet in Prague, and died eleven days later, on 24 October 1601. According to Kepler's first hand account, Tycho had refused to leave the banquet to relieve himself because it would have been a breach of etiquette.[25][26] After he had returned home he was no longer able to urinate, except eventually in very small quantities and with excruciating pain. The night before he died he suffered from a delirium during which he was frequently heard to exclaim that he hoped he would not seem to have lived in vain.[27]
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Forcing a prisoner to ingest large amounts of liquid and not allowing them to urinate is a documented form of torture. For most people, wetting their pants is highly humiliating and some will confess to anything in agony just to be allowed to use a toilet.
The ability to hold one's urine is related to control of pelvic floor muscles and many people lose strength and control as they age or give birth or have surgery. That's why people suffer the humiliation of incontinence. It's a real medical problem, not lack of will power.
So ... your friend is just plain wrong.