A resource for consumers, locksmiths, and security professionals
I’m pretty sure that we’ve all lost things on a day where alcohol got the best of us, right? I can’t be the only one that doesn’t possess a super high functioning liver that metabolizes alcohol at amazing speeds. Drinking socially is something that a good chunk of the population is postulated to enjoy. What better way is there to bond with your friends than to play a competitive game of beer pong or enjoy a well-crafted cocktail with people at a bar? With great power comes great responsibility, and no matter how much fun drinking may be, it is important to always be cognizant of the dangers that can arise from drinking too much.
It is important to be responsible for yourself and for those around you. When an individual is under the influence of alcohol it exposes them to dangers that wouldn’t normally be cause for alarm. Among these are the dangers of being locked out of a home or car. This could happen to you or a friend, so regardless of which friend you might be with on a Friday night (the sober one or the one dancing across tables) it is imperative that you pay close attention to everything that follows. This could very well be the solution that prevents your weekend from ending badly. Without further ado let’s jump right into how a night on the town can increase your need for calling a locksmith near you.
Alcohol has numerous effects on both the brain and the body. Yes, some people do drink to feel a euphoric buzz, but aside from washing you over with good feelings (temporarily), alcohol impairs your judgment and your motor functions (among other things). Many alcohol consumers are unaware of the fact that alcohol is a depressant. It dampens the transmissions from the brain’s neurotransmitters, which is why the general feeling of relaxation is associated with drinking. Depressants quite literally depress the brain’s functions, for instance, if you have naturally occurring inhibitions (that might prevent you from doing something stupid) they are depressed by alcohol. Many consumers have feelings of invulnerability and delusions of grandeur that don’t surface until after they are a few shots in.
These are the early effects of consuming alcohol. With continued consumption in one sitting, alcohol can lead to feelings of anxiety, anger or depression. There are also those who blackout when they are drinking and remember very little (mostly nothing) that occurs during the time of said blackout. There are the most obvious signs like slurred speech and impaired motor skills that consumers have either witnessed or experienced, first hand. At this point, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with home security or being locked out of your home. Well, keep reading, you’re about to find out.
As was stated earlier (and as many of you already knew), alcohol tends to bring out the hidden gladiator in us all. However, when Russell Crowe goes overboard things tend to take a turn for the worse. The consumption of alcohol inhibits the transmissions between neurons and their respective receptors. This means that it spills forward into every action that needs smooth transmission between these internal components. So in effect, every action. It becomes a lot harder to focus on individual tasks when alcohol comes into play, everything becomes a distraction and you will gradually begin to lose track of people and things. In addition to these, your hand-eye coordination drastically drops and performing simple acts becomes increasingly intricate. Driving a vehicle becomes just as hard as reading blueprints (if you’ve never seen them in your life), and you can’t even rely on muscle memory to bail you out of this situation.
The truth is, alcohol increases the chances of you being locked out of somewhere. It could be your car or your home (I hope it’s not your office unless you’re trying to get something from your office after an office party – then the drinking is excused). This could happen in a number of ways and we’ll walk you through all of them just so you have a clear picture of how easy it could be to be stuck outside on a night when what you really need is to be in a nice warm bed.
Friends exist, sometimes, to save us from ourselves and the decisions we make. This is why it is such a common occurrence for friends to take keys from each other, especially when one of them has been drinking. It prevents the situation that may arise if one person thinks it might be a good idea to drive under the influence. If you have a friend that takes your keys away from you, keep them close because they have nothing but your best interests at heart. However, they also tend to be the causes of drunken home lockouts.
When an individual is drunk, their brain’s neurotransmitters are operating in a very limited capacity, and this leads to many of them becoming immensely distracted. The probability of a drunk person remembering that someone else has their keys is an already low one to begin with and one that decreases even more as the alcohol intake increases. Well, here you are, too drunk to drive and too drunk to remember that someone has your keys for safekeeping, yet somehow, you’re still sober enough to find an Uber or a cab home (If you’re close enough just walk and work off some of that alcohol).
As far as you’re currently concerned, everything is going swell. That is until you get home and try and unlock your door and realize that you have no keys to do this with. It is at this moment (or maybe a few sober moments later) that a locksmith becomes your friend. I’m sure there are people reading this who are thinking to themselves, “Oh I’m a pretty decent lockpicker, I could pick my way in and save myself the cost of using a locksmith”. Who knows? you might be right, but I’m willing to bet that if you’re too drunk to drive and too drunk to remember to ask for your keys, then you are most likely too drunk to be able to pick your way home. If you happen to remember who you gave your keys to in your drunken stupor then, by all means, give them a call and see if they can stop by and unlock your door.
However, it is highly unlikely that the person you call will be available to help you out, it is the weekend after all. This doesn’t mean your situation is hopeless because 24-hour locksmiths exist for a reason. There are many that are available to help you out of the predicament you are in and get you into your home. It will be immensely hard to compare which locksmith is better suited to help you out, especially in an inebriated state. Personally, I would advise researching all this information before you even start to drink, that way if anything goes wrong you will know just who to call. I know, I know, it doesn’t sound like the ideal way to start a night, but it will increase the chances that your night ends in a safe and comfortable manner.
Like I said earlier, the consumption of alcohol is most commonly manifested in the form of terrible hand-eye coordination. Has anyone you know ever texted you a string of incoherent messages that didn’t even make sense? In some special cases, you might think your friends are fluent in Klingon, or a fictitious language that is vaguely similar, like Tolkien’s well crafted Elvish. This is one of the earliest signs that someone probably needs to be cut off for the night, or at least paid close attention to.
Due to the depressing and limiting qualities of alcohol, the signals being sent from your brain to its receptors that make your body perform tasks and move normally are being hindered. When your mind is working on this inhibited wavelength, you might want to hit the letter ‘A’ on your screen and you’ll end up pressing a question mark. The word keys will look something like this, “kt3z”. This is why many people have a hard time getting past doors when they’re drunk. The kind of locking mechanism on the door doesn’t really matter.
There is a degree of difficulty involved in inserting a key into a lock that only surfaces once alcohol has been ingested. It is the same difficulty reigns true for locks that use a keypad. Your security sequence may be 1-2-3-4, but you might find yourself pressing 3-2-4-1. This is one of the most common instances where someone who is drunk will be in need of an emergency locksmith. However, in a drunken state your first instinct isn’t going to be rational. It is likely that you will not be trying to call an emergency locksmith. The brain avoids complex actions when it is under the influence of alcohol and functions in a linear way. That being said, your sole thought is going to be unlocking the door and getting into bed, and it is going to be about just that.
So instead of trying to think outside of the box and see how you can get in by other means, you close the box and seal yourself in it and continuously try and insert the key into the lock (or press the wrong numbers on the keypad). This is a dangerous thing to do because you are more likely to break the lock and damage the key (or lose it) in the process of whatever you are doing, rather than gaining entry. You can even end up breaking your key off in the lock. And you will not be well enough to get the broken key out of the lock yourself. Once this occurs you will still have to call a locksmith, and it will end up costing you more because of the compounded damage. Now, I know it’s hard to think about this in that moment, but it helps to be armed with the knowledge beforehand, which is why this post exists. When I say beforehand, I mean before you start partying like it’s 1989 (cue the Taylor Swift music).
Another one of the many dangers of alcohol is what I like to call the superhuman effect. This manifests itself in many different ways. For some, it imbues them with herculean powers, while others are gifted with the mental acuity of Albert Einstein. Keep in mind, that this is how they see themselves, to a sober person they are just exhibiting abnormal traits and being annoying. In some rare cases, when someone realizes they do not have their keys, or that they cannot perform the simple operation of unlocking it with a key, they resort to other more unconventional methods. You would think that it would be easier for someone to call an emergency locksmith or a friend to help them out, but as always the human mind is an impressive thing. Some people solve the problem head on by attempting to kick the door down to get into their rooms. Not only can this cause bodily harm, but it doesn’t negate the need for a locksmith, it only increases said need.
For those of you who still think you can just take out your beginner’s lock pick set and unlock the door while drunk, how do you expect to do that if you can’t even use a key? However, people have still been known to try and earn bragging rights to an unwanted title. The point is anything that can harm your door, rather than helping you open it should not even be attempted. If, you attempt to pick, bump or jimmy your lock while you are intoxicated the only thing you can hope to accomplish is damaging your door. If, by some stroke of insane drunken luck, you are able to accomplish getting the door open that way then ‘yay’ for you, get some sleep. Also, if you’re going out drinking, why do you have your lock picking set with you?
Almost every action we take is generated by transmissions between the neurons and their receptors in the brain. When these transmissions are inhibited, it results in a loss of control over your body. Neurotransmissions happen less frequently and the body gradually slows. The brain is normally able to tackle large complex situations or at least logically work through them. However, under the influence of alcohol, the brain operates in a unilateral manner and tries to solve problems with the easiest possible solution that presents itself. For instance, if someone finds themselves locked out while they are drunk, they either try and break the door down, climb in through a window or simply pass out in front of the door. These are the most basic thoughts that come to your mind, and you attempt to act on them because, in that moment, alcohol is blocking anything logical or complex from making its way into your mind.
Most of these actions are hard to do when you are drunk, and increase the chance of inflicting self-harm rather than getting your door open. Waking up the next day with a sore shoulder and a broken door are definitely signs that you drank a little (a lot) too much. It is best to call an Emergency Locksmith to get you back into your house, because the most difficult thing you will have to do in that moment is to be patient, and there are no side effects to that. Emergency locksmiths are equipped to get you out of emergency situations in record time, and I believe that if you can’t find your keys and you are contemplating breaking your door down, then it is an emergency.
Drinking also increases the chances of someone experiencing temporary memory loss. With the increased consumption of alcohol, the brain’s processes start to slow down. This normally leads to instances where the brain can no longer store memories as they occur. This event is normally termed as a blackout and involves a temporary loss of memory after heavy alcohol consumption. This can be considered a decrease in the brain’s functions, and it is a very serious issue. Many things can occur during a blackout and the person experiencing it would be none the wiser. If you happen to lose your car keys, damage your locks or give someone the location of your buried treasure, you wouldn’t remember any of it. And when you wake up and need to replace your lost car keys, fix your broken lock, and see your treasure is gone, you’ll need to call a locksmith. For the first two any anyway. Call the police, I guess, for the treasure. Or maybe a private investigator.
Do you know anyone that is extremely stubborn to the point that the old adage about being as stubborn as a goat, does them no justice? I know quite a few people like that, and I’m sure that there are many more out there. Some of you are probably reading this post. Well, this last section is for you. This is for all those who didn’t heed the warnings about breaking the door down or trying to bump the lock or forcing the key to turn when you couldn’t remember how your door knob worked. Chances are, if you didn’t heed the warning, you’re gonna be waking up in the morning to find that a few things in your home are in need of repairs. You may have broken the lock on your door, or taken the entire door of off its hinges. Whatever the case may be, if you did not have your keys the night before and you’re in your home now (with no sign of the same keys), you most likely still need to call a locksmith or some other repair company to help you fix whatever it is you damaged to get back in.
Another reason why it is ill-advised to enter forcibly if you are drunk is because you risk compromising the security of your home. When your home security is compromised it helps to get it fixed as soon as possible and it is an even bigger bonus if you are sober in the process, that way you have your entire mental faculty at your disposal. With your home security being compromised while you are drunk, you are left vulnerable to theft and other harmful occurrences. It’s like giving a burglar a phone call to say “rob me!”.
Having a drink or two every now and then with the right people can lead to a fun, memorable night. If you are going to be drinking, I would advise keeping a few things in mind that can make your night go a whole lot smoother and help prevent you, or anyone else you know, getting locked out.
Category: Automotive, Car Keys, Lock Humor, Residential
