Most pilots are paid well enough to be professional already.
So being "professional" is a function of your pay?
If you get paid for a service, you are a professional - regardless of the quantum of the pay.
Being a professional means accepting that you turn up fit for work, and in accordance with the law. It implies adjusting your lifestyle to the demands of your profession.
There seems to be too much tolerance in this thread - almost as if there is a collusion that we all know it goes on, and this poor guy got caught. His sentence is not for his disease - which is quite irrelevant - but for his unprofessional conduct.