What am I supposed to do?

He drinks 4 cans A DAY (not including what he drinks when he goes out), and you don't think he has a problem????

Oh yes, he does. Wake up OP. Wake up before you find yourself arranging his funeral.

This reminds me of a friend of mine, her 45 year old son lives, rent free, in a flat she had bought to rent out and provide her with an income in her retirement (she has no private pension), she regular goes into the flat to clean, fill the fridge and does all his washing and ironing. She also "batch" cooks and fills the freezer. He doesn't work as he finds it "too stressful"!!

She is in her 70s and not in the best of health. She visited me a couple of weeks ago and was worried about what will happen to him when she is no longer able to look after him. I told her she should stop cleaning, stop filling the fridge and stop doing his washing. As she has very little money I said she should tell him he has to start paying rent or he will have to move out as she needs the income.

She says she can't do that, so things will continue as they are and I will continue to be a shoulder for her to cry on.

You say he has plumbing skills, huge demand for those, sounds like he could be lazy too.
He will never grow up with all the support but then again, some guys today never seem to mature. No idea why so many guys want a soft option and no responsibility today. I have seen it in my own family, makes me feel really cross as I had to struggle and work hard to buy a home, but I was determined to do it.

In my professional life working in aged care I came across many of these middle aged "men" who had been supported, indulged, waited on and cosseted by their mothers. Interestingly the adult children like this always seem to be male. Women who continue to live with elderly parents generally take on the role of the care provider rather than the recipient of care.

Eventually and inevitably the mother becomes older, frailer, perhaps confused and dies. What is left behind is a very unappealing middle aged or elderly male with no life skills, poor social skills and frequently a major alcohol problem who becomes a burden on everyone around them. These men are past being able or motivated to learn new life and personal skills and often have alcohol related brain damage and other health issues.

In the OPs case the sponging son will almost certainly become a burden and a worry to his hard working brother. Others become a burden on their local community, their neighbours, the health care system and the state.

Those misguided mothers who think they are showing their sons "love" are complicit in producing these social disasters and need to think about the poisonous legacy they are leaving other family members and their society.

Chinesecrested the only way he will learn at this point, is for you to tell him you are not giving him money and he will have to pay his way from now. And stick to it.

I sadly had to tell my DS at aged 27 that he would get no more money. Within a year he was in full time work, well paid and has remained so.

Unconditional love also means preparing our children for the world, responsibility and all that implies. Hardly any woman in her right mind will take on a man child either, so by being firm we are helping them towards marriage love and their own home.

Well you know perfectly well what you should do - burn his cigarettes or drop them down the toilet, enforce a rent payment and if he doesnt like it he can sleep in the van, he wont be sleeping under a bridge will he.

You've raised a spoilt leech and you are happy with that. I guess you'll leave him your house so he can have somewhere to live and he'll drink himself into liver failure with the proceeds and try to leech off his brother instead.
So you are driving a wedge between your children too.

Force him to grow up now while you can still be there in a real emergency.

They remain our children however old they get. You don't love and nurture a child, feed and clothe it, just to abandon it when it gets to a certain age

No chinacrested, you have got it all wrong. A parent is responsible for ensuring by loving nurture a child that when adulthood is reached is capable of standing on their own two feet and making their own way in the world without constantly running to hide under mother's apron. If a child cannot do that then the parent has failed their child. Most children going through childhood are encouraged by their parents to take little baby steps to independence so that sometime between 20 and 30 they are ready to fly the nest. You are now lumbered with a great big cuckoo in your nest and you need to get him out and independent.

The first thing to do is to enforce the rules you already have and stop lending him money. You know very well, he will never repay it. Then tell him that he needs to be self supporting and give him, say 9 months to get his money in order and organise a home of his own. The moment he leaves home change the locks and do NOT give him a key. If he refuses to go, change the locks one day when he is out. Tell him each day when you will ebe able to let him in or out, and lock up for the night at 10.00.

Your blind unconditional love for your son has turned him into a irresponsible selfish self-centred man that no sensible woman would touch with a barge pole. Was that your intention? If you really love him, you will now belatedly, treat him in a way that makes him grow up and take responsibility for his life.

Hear Hear MOnica, however the OP will not change a thing re this son. We all know this and we are wasting our time giving advice. These kinds of mothers will never see what they are doing wrong, it suits them to have these adult "babies" still living at home.
My own mother had a son like this, charming and likeable, never had to worry about paying for anything, mum always came through.
When he found a sugar daddy he was gone without a second glance, at least until mum was dying and then he took over.
Makes the other children very angry.

Agree with Chewbacca here. You are enabling this to happen.

Offer to pay 1/2 the rent for a room (shared house/apartment) for three months to get him started on his new life.
Give him a deadline for moving out.
Change your locks that day and do not give him keys.
He may visit as all other family.
Think about what you were doing at that age. If you stop making him dependent, he no longer will be.
Time for you to reclaim your life.