Michaella McCollum says that she hopes her twin sons will learn from her experiences of being jailed for drug trafficking.
The Co Tyrone woman and Melissa Reid from Scotland were nicknamed the 'Peru Two' after they were caught trying to smuggle 11kg of cocaine out of Peru’s capital Lima in August 2013.
Both were sentenced to six years and eight months in prison but were released in 2016.
Michaella is now living back in Northern Ireland, where she is bringing up two sons who were born last year.
Speaking to ITV's Lorraine about the release of her new autobiography titled You’ll Never See Daylight Again, she said she hopes that her children would one day read and learn from her story.
She said: "I hope my children can learn from my experiences.
"I don't want them taking drugs and being lost in life, and the book can be a guidelines for themselves.
"I feel like I'm so detached from that person, I feel like people do judge me a lot. There was lots of opinions on me.
"It was the harshest way I could have learned some lessons in life. You need hardship to learn, I'm so glad it happened and it pulled me out of a dark place."
Michaella also spoke about the difficulties of bringing up her two sons without help from the children's father.
She added: "It's not how I envisaged things.
"They are my children and I want the best for them, I was prepared to do it on my own. I'm glad and sad."
She also revealed that she no longer sees her fellow smuggler Melissa Reid but the pair have stayed in touch.
The pair had met in Ibiza in 2013 where they were employed by a drug-dealing gang.
They were offered £5,000 to smuggle €1.7million worth of cocaine out of Lima, Peru, but were caught and jailed.
Miss Collum said: "At the time I thought £5,000 was a lot of money, that it was easy money, but now I know that £5,000 isn't a lot of money.
"The way I saw it I was doing something normal over here, back here drugs are a taboo subject but it felt like a normal thing to do over there."
