She is a supporter of the United States Democratic Party, describing herself as "Democrat from the ground up", and the British Labour Party. Throughout her career, Lansbury supported a variety of charities, particularly those such as Abused Wives in Crisis that combated domestic abuse and those who worked toward rehabilitating drug users. In the 1980s, she began to support a number of charities engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS. In early life she had been a chain smoker, giving up the addiction cold turkey in the mid-1960s. In 1976 and 1987, she had cosmetic surgery on her neck to prevent it from broadening with age. During the 1990s, she began to suffer from arthritis, in May 1994 had hip replacement surgery, and in 2005 had knee replacement surgery.