Thlayli,
I think that later on they will see the decision as the right one, maybe the cannot do that now, with a childs parent centric focus, and maybe it will take them hearing stories from friends about the "bullet" they dodged.
Of course it is all a matter of degrees, kids who live with a happy drunk who works a job comes home and sits in front of the tv drinking until he just goes to sleep may see it much differently to one raised with screaming, fighting, gaslighting, sexual abuse, as their normal.
I have kind of a twisted take on it.
If my mom was sober:
My mom and dad would not have fought, tension would have been lower.
My mom would have not talked to me like she would a mangy stray dog.
My mom could have better protected me from my dads severe physical abuse.
If my dad had left with us, we would not have to listen to them fight.
If my dad had left with us, we would have been protected from my moms esteem draining acid tongue.
If my dad had left with us, maybe he would not have beat me so often (this one may be wishful thinking on my part)
I believe in my heart that if my mother had been relatively sober, she would have been a good wife and mother and our house would have been peaceful, my long worked long hours and took good care of us financially but came home stressed, my mom only added to that stress, she was to drunk to engage in any kind of intimacy with him, she badgered him about things out of his control, she complained incessantly about some minor slight at the grocery store or in traffic, so they fought constantly, the tension level in our home was near boiling all the time.
I was happiest staying at my grandparents house.
They were both at fault, they never tried to get help, and they never attempted to fix the problem, they took out their misery on me as well as each other.
I would have chosen divorce or at very least separation, but that's just me.