Bill Wilson. Bob Smith. Some readers may recognize those names, but I suspect they are unfamiliar to many others. They are common names, unremarkable as a pair of old shoes. And yet those two men, though unknown to so many people, launched a program that has saved millions of lives over the last 85 years. Early Successes Better known as Bill W. during his lifetime, Bill Wilson (1895-1971) grew up in Vermont. Raised by his grandparents after his parents divorced, an event that cast the 11-year-old boy into a deep depression, Bill excelled in school, graduated as senior class president, and intended to marry a classmate, Bertha Banford, whose unexpected death brought on a second bout of depression. In 1918, shortly before shipping out for duty in the First World War, Bill married Lois Burnham, the daughter of a New York physician, a marriage that would last until his death …