In addition to 'Codependent No More,' which seems to be the text of choice recommended on this site, I would check out a book called 'Love First' by Jeff Jay. It is highly instructive not only in helping families come to terms with their loved ones addiction, but also in helping them plan interventions.
Even if the intervention does not have the effect of getting the loved one clean/sober, they are still valuable, as others on this site have alluded to. Interventions:
a) Allow family members to state publicly that they are aware of the problem;
b) Allow family members to acknowledge that they have made their own mistakes in the past, which they are now trying to own;
c) Most importantly, they help the family publicly set boundaries. The addict has the choice to get clean or not, the family has the choice to let the addict know, to his face, what behavior they will be accepting of and what behavior they clearly will not accept.
On the subject of telling other people, I don't think it does much good to needlessly advertise the fact that he is an addict. It is only worth mentioning when his actions have created consequences which have now been shifted on to you. Lying or obfuscating in order to get the addict out of his own mess does no good for any of you.
On an unrelated note, I wouldn't read too much into that TV show. IMHO, it makes a cheap spectacle out of other people's suffering for the purposes of entertaining the audience for an hour between re-runs of Seinfeld. If some of the people on the show do in fact get clean/sober and stay that way, terrific. But in the bigger picture, reality TV is ultimately TV, not reality.