Reopen zener diode after reverse bias breakdown
It occurs to me that you're thinking of a zener diode as a thyristor or a diac.

For example, the IV curve for a diac:



Once either threshold voltage is reached, the diac "turns on" and stays on until the current drops below the holding current value.  Importantly, note that there are two values of current associated with any voltage between \$V_F\$ and \$V_{BO}\$ since the diac can be "on" or "off".

However, the IV curve for a zener (or avalanche) diode:



is qualitatively different.  Note that, for the zener, for any voltage, there is only one value of current associated so the zener isn't a two-state device.  Yes, it does have regions of operation (forward biased, reverse biased, and breakdown) but these simply refer to different regions of the IV curve.