Do TV-style interventions actually work?

Your unease has evidence behind it. The ambush-style intervention makes great television and mixed results in real life — people pushed by surprise and shame sometimes go to treatment, and sometimes the relationship damage outlasts the stay. What has better research support is the slower approach: CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training), where the family changes how it responds — warmth stays, funding and shielding stop, and the invitation to help is always visible. If they do want a facilitated conversation, a credentialed professional interventionist who does PREPARATION (several family sessions first, no surprises to anyone's dignity) is a different animal from the living-room ambush. The goal is a door he walks through, not a corner he's backed into.