I presented myself for an FAA checkride one morning to a Designated Pilot Examiner who following the oral, informed me that we couldn't fly until 1100 at the earliest as he had been drinking into the early hours of the morning. As the morning wore on however, it became clear that his hangover was progressively getting worse and the copious amounts of coffee and jugs of Gatorade just weren't helping so he effectively persuaded me to call off the trip on the basis that the crosswind was likely to be outside limits by the time we taxied - it was only a few degrees off the axis and less than 12kts forecast for the entire day, in addition to me having several thousand hours of experience. We met again the following week, flew and as I shutdown he handed me a pre-typed Temporary Airman's Certificate to sign...I learned about flying that day. This gentlemen flew Part 121 for a living.
Another guy I knew was an A320 skipper with a large US carrier who was often seen wandering around the local grocery store in uniform minus his epaulettes before mid-morning, nursing a large 7 eleven jug and slurping away as he went - who drinks vodka through a straw? My point being that although I'm sure most of the sorry tales we see reported are no more than an unfortunate aberration, whether it be an oversight of the strength of the local tipple or inadvertently reaching for 2/3 of a bottle of scotch in the night instead of your glass of water, some aircrew, in common with a proportion of the rest of society, suffer the appalling affliction of alcoholism, yet apparently manage to remain high-functioning and continue their daily routine unaffected by their diminished mental health state. The gentlemen described in my examples above are both now retired but there are many who continue to fly and who need help and support to either stop drinking or stop flying and sometimes, it's the intervention of the TSA or suspicion of a local security screener that makes that decision for them. Surely there has to be a better deterrent than merely a chance that you get caught?