At the beginning of my career I worked for a short time for a European night express mail airline - alcoholism was a known problem but was diplomatically ignored by management and colleagues alike.
The individuals concerned would actually have bottles of booze in their bags which everyone could hear clanking as they got out of the crew bus, then the little boozing gang had day stop drinking sessions in a hotel room.
Everyone knew and it was treated in a 'dont make trouble, yes we know, it could be you one day' type attitude...until the leader of the boozing gang ran his aircraft off the runway during a take off run, denied any knowledge of it whilst they scrapped piles of mud out of his main wheel bay at the destination...he was sent home on paid furlough until 6 months later they finally terminated his contract...
Hardly a positive response to a very obvious and dangerous problem...more like 'let's not talk about it and hope it doesn't get embarrasing' - I leave it to you to define how far it has to go before it got 'embarrasing'
This should not be a case of 'covering up' so the public are not alarmed...it is a known problem and should be addressed in an proactive manner so that confidence (and discipline) is upheld.