Drupal 7 db_query how to return regular array from varchar field
https://www.drupal.org/node/1251174

$arr2 = db_query('SELECT stats FROM {my_db} WHERE uid = :uid AND nid = :nid', array(':uid' =&gt; $usid, ':nid' =&gt; $noid))-&gt;fetchCol();

print_r($arr2[0]);